MONOLITH

MONOLITH

MONOLITH

At the foot of a northern pylon of the Harbour Bridge 
I have kept my vigil since the mighty span was built. 
I come early in the day from worn-out corners of the area 
and sit when the sun is out until the waning afternoon, 
thence to another role, another manifestation of duty. 
On my way I pass a cavern echoing with traffic noise. 
When the sun is setting it blazes up like a testing tunnel 
of the cosmic fire at the beginning and ending of universes. 
It reminds me we are not that far in time from a kalpa’s ending. 
More than four thousand million years in the lives 
of the starry and the planetary entities 
who influence us and are never truly seen. 
At the pylon’s base I meet with seeming fools and sages, 
more of the former, alas, but it was ever the same 
at the other Thebes. The great towering stone columns could fittingly house 
the troglodytic priests and harbour an inward turning flame 
in bifurcated flowering for the known and unknown god 
and my own dilapidated dispensation. 
The only way the scene differs now  
is in the lack of overt piety, 
the thinning out of conscious pilgrims passing by me 
here upon the seasonally withered grass.