“Time Circles” by Bob Shea
“Sunset vista, Ojo Sarco, New Mexico“: Bob Shea
Near the base of the last peak
in the Sangre de Cristo,
a house is being built.
Stone, wood and mud
a column of concrete, Martello-like,
now stands at the center.
The wind in the pinon
sings of ancient mysteries
Blood fathers and mothers
sons, sisters.
Present times and brief encounters in the red mud,
in the smoky kiva,
in the trees, falling
in forest flames, consumed.
Aching arms, as if doomed to Sisyphean labor,
pull buckets of mud
to the top of the tower.
A wedding cake building, rising from love, from necessity.
Red brown water slaps the sides of the old mixer,
as gleaming backs, sun leathered, strain to lift the sand.
Paying attention,
the only way you know if the mud mixes right
how it sticks for only a second before
sliding into the gray liquid.
Pink insulation sheets,
roll into place within the ribs of rough sawn fir,
like slabs of blubber in some exotic beast,
Now the green roof gleams,
Sun glinting off steel.
The tower is smoothed, topped now
with gold and pink waves,
a tan shaft smoke stack,
a parasol with flame-seared cedar spokes
whose scent incenses the mud walls,
marked with animal tracks.
Who will live here?
Who will draw energy from this tower?
Light the pinon logs in the rough-rocked hearth?
Who will wear a path to the threshold?
Burn candles in the nichos?
Who will witness this house return,
tower crumbled,
to stone, wood, and mud?
Artist Statement
My first written piece was “Battle of the Question Marks”. I was 14 years old. Our English instructor called it science fiction and published it in the school’s version of a literary journal. My first claim to being an author, a communicator with his voice on the page.
I’ve come to see writing as a craft, like any self-chosen skill; a story-telling skill that grows when following the initial prompt toward writing. That prompt can become a continuing flow of prompts that merge the external … media scripts, business communication, non-fiction, poems, fiction… and internal…experiences, memories, wishes.
This craft for me is like woodworking …word-working…continuous learning how to shape an idea, feeling, experience into something visible to anyone.
Bob Shea has written essays, personal stories, scripts and poems. He’s worked as a video producer/director, videographer/editor in broadcasting and corporate communications. That work has taken Bob to 14 countries. As a Visiting Lecturer, he has taught at RIT’s School of Communications. Bob holds an MFA in Non-fiction from Bennington College. His writing has been published in Fourth Genre, Consequence Magazine, Arrowsmith Journal, as well as regional magazines. He and his wife Kate, an award-winning illustrator, live in Rochester NY.