When One Has Walled a Long Time All Alone
Inspired by Galway Kinnell and the dry stone waller, Dan Snow
1
--“heart stone” refers to the hidden, small stone packed between
both sides of a wall to keep it balanced and tight--
When one has walled a long time all alone
one grows so fond of chipmunk, lizard, and frog
thriving in these low-income, adobe condos
that one’s design is also inspired by a desire
to provide grottos and spaces safe from fox claw--
so a wall's beauty, one notes, is as beholden to
a love for blind moles as to any sacred Mayan ruin;
and, in providing these escape-ways and dry lofts,
one comes to see how walling provides the soul
with this odd means of making its kindness known,
even through winter’s ten belows as one now sleeps
as peacefully as these creatures in knowing they burr-
ow inside the spaces of one’s unseen heart stone
when one has walled a long time all alone…..
2
When one has walled a long time all alone
one feels a stone's weight comes in contemplating
a like banishment from the Eden of its mountain peak
and how their mute, hard-headed natures, too, result
from the same forgotten sorrow over losing that piece
of Paradise when ground beneath the Ice Age’s mile-high
glacier—though, laying the wall where each alienated stone
merges back into a piece of that lost, blessed whole, one feels
one’s heavy heart, too, might reclaim its own lost sense of union
if one’s as willing to try and reconcile with all the like broken souls
created in the wake of one’s own separations; and one vows, now,
to reunite with that stepfather and his fists of stone; and one wills
healing with the ex who had a heart of stone after, of course, one
first delays returning home so one can glimpse that soon-to-be
blessed reunion by leaning against the day’s walled stones
until feeling the heat they contain, store, and exchange
seeping into one’s own bones’ misshapen stones
when one has walled a long time all alone….
3
When one has walled a long time all alone
One notes earthworms rising nights to excrete
their castings which, over centuries, will bury the
seemingly indomitable wall so--though surviving the
skidder and property disputes—the wall cannot escape
the laws of mother nature; and so one sees the wall, so
far down the road, as a mansion for the million-plus earth-
worms working each acre below; and one feels, in their boot
sole sinking into mud from last night’s downpour, the gravity
of one’s own mortality though, with the thought of the worm’s
three hearts fueling the half-inch of topsoil they create each
year (all the while playing David to the Goliath of stone),
one grows to accept the decline one feels in laying all
the granite capstone; and one desires, even more,
that green, home burial in pine coffin where the
decaying walls draw so many worms to de-
compose my stone bones back into dirt and
the god-stuff of duff for lovely earthworms
when one has walled a long time all alone.
4
When one has walled a long time all alone
one admires the wall’s peace and solemnity
on par with any cathedral’s blessed stones
until walls turn into these mini monasteries
for chickadees' morning matins, and the snail’s
slow, faithful circling of the stations of stone--
on their way, it seems, to the foundation stones’
catacombs echoing crickets' Gregorian chants which,
at dusk, so heighten one's sense of the sublime that,
when the ring-neck pheasant lands to fan her wings,
one feels it’s as sacred as the blessed Mary appearing
and one learns to prolong this odd communion with
the hallowed by seeing how long one can remain
(with or without knowledge of a God) a pillar of stone
when one has walled a long time all alone.
5
The Dry-Stone Waller Considers the European Medieval World's Socioeconomics
Underlying the First Primitive Escargot Farms
--from “The Dry-Stone Walls of Mallorca”--
When one has walled a long time all alone
One ponders impoverish farmer, lacking livestock,
turning to these rock walls to raise snail protein
and, thus, left spaces for rain, moss, and duff
to congregate so odd gaping holes were snail
feeding troughs then entryways for hands to feel for
a measly meal; and one sees how they soon saw, their
own snaily lives in tilling wet fields rife with stones
while residing in rock homes weighing them down in
kind with tithes so, when they boiled snails, one theorizes
how they gleaned their own sad lives; and one honors
the spaces between stone containing this hard grief
as one frees each stuck snail from stone’s underside
when one has walled a long time all alone…..
6
When one has walled a long time all alone
one has a wall stolen in the name of stones
sold for as much as a hundred-plus bucks a ton
and one seeks his stones’ unique chins and noses
in walls passed while driving old country roads--until
one recalls those Zen monks blowing sand paintings in-
to the river to keep the stone of ego from weighing them
down; and one then sees that stone thief as his supreme
guru ensuring one creates purely for the joy in feeling so
immersed in the moment while engaging one's soul that,
finishing the next wall, one desires to thank this burglar of
boulders for stealing away the weight in having to create
a masterpiece which inspires one’s profile to be chiseled
in stone; and one now, as in youth, merely labors to be-
come lost in the flow state of concentration where time
stops and peace and union so consume that one feels
this happiness and peace is as lovely a masterpiece
as that David who was liberated from the stone
when one has walled a long time all alone
7
When one has walled a long time all alone
One often labors under the stone moon’s galaxy glow
Then marvels at the emerging stars’ crowning fieldstones
From heaven’s own frost heaving while constellations of cairns
point to the “soul-covered peaks” of the hierarchies where God, I
console, is also a dry stone waller and, finally I feel, in mastering the
same sacred geometry in the wall’s angled battering, that I’m communing
with this lovely Aurora Borealis of aura who, too, delights in striking the perfect
balance between the stones of Mars and her moons so, as my face stones
rely, in kind, on nothing but grace of gravity, I see I’m on my way to fathoming
that mind; and I pray the perfectly balanced through-stone--holding top and bottom
rows into one harmonious whole--reveals more sacred laws bringing me closer to a creator
whose company, I now feel, I’m worthy of as I lean against the stones and gaze at the Milky Way’s
Silver River of stones which is the “as above” to my wall’s “so below,” or so the apostles of stones
softly chime as, oh, I so lovingly lord over my blessed stones when one has walled a long time all alone.
8
The Dry-Stone Waller on Chipmunks and Dry-Stone Walls
When one has walled a long time all alone one
Notices the walls become low-income condos
whose spaces, between stones, are entryways
to dens safe from fox paws and coon claws--
while the caverns inside provide dry storage
for winter's store of pinecones and acorns
which so nurture offspring that, maturing,
they set up home just "a few rocks over"
and--dining with cousins and in-laws atop
the capstone's patio--confirm my returning
to restore my family's own ancient colonial
where my wife and I break bread over granite
my grandmother pounded the daily dough over
and where my two sons, in turn, warm their toes on
the fieldstone hearth my grandfather composed be-
fore dying in the bed where my mom gave birth to me
and, God willing, too, will be where I take my last breath
and become part of this home's own epic, unfolding story
even as I imagine my forgotten ashes on soapstone mantel
so like those deceased chipmunks' bones which decompose
to become one with all the unseen heart stone keeping the
wall whole when one has walled a long time all alone.
Dennis Camire is the author of the poetry collection, Anthology of Awe and Wonder(Deerbrook Editions, June, 2024) and Combed by Crows (Deerbrook Editions) and teaches writing at Central Maine Community. The former director of Maine Poetry Central and the founder of The Portland Poet Laureate Program, his work has appeared in The Mid-American Review, Poetry East, Spoon River Review, Lothlorien Review, Alluvium, Amethyst, Café Review, Canary, Hamilton Stone Review, Speckled Trout Review and on Maine Public Radio. He lives in an A-frame in West Paris, Maine.
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