There sat a brick on the corner
of Chelten and Green.
It was red, dusty and stained
with anger.
Anger because someone had thrown it
through the window of a church.
Angry because shattered shards
took everyone’s reflection with them.
It wasn’t the first time, you see,
that rage and brick met head to head.
It wasn’t the first time
foreheads bled.
Over the years, different hands
attached to different voices
declaring different causes
have picked up the brick for their aims,
and regardless of target, homegrown or foreign,
no one ever asked
the brick how it felt, what it wanted to do.
No, it was simply chosen
by arms far larger than itself,
gripped by steaming red nails
much harder than itself.
Truthfully, the brick had no natural rage.
It wasn’t at all a thing of violence.
What it dreamed of was construction,
the building of things,
from homes for the abandoned,
to bridges between understandings.
The brick truly was
softer than what others thought,
and when the Powers had learned this,
oh, how they scowled—
how they hurled bloody hate.
And for one last time, someone grabbed
and tossed it—this time out
of a window instead of inside one.
There it lied, exactly where it fell,
on the corner of Chelten and Green,
abandoned by those that once had need
of its innocence and generosity—
abandon by all
except wind and rain,
except time, except pain—except
the funny thing was
this rain and this time
became its greatest friends
because pain over time, fades with cool rain,
and through weather
the bitter got better,
the hot red dust clearing away.
Yes, that’s right, the violence and causes,
and even the people,
melted away.
The brick was no more,
and no more a brick,
what remains
today on the corner of Chelten and Green
is a flower as sapphire as day.