Jon D. Lee
Oculus
The posts weren’t set in concrete, so the fence shifted
With the suck and swell of wet soil, worked the latch against
Itself & froze the gate. So too the bathroom tiles
That buckled underfoot, or slipped the walls and shattered
In the tub. Better: the townsfolk who drowned half-
Asleep when the mortar failed the buttresses, and the dam
Crumbled, and the lake rushed the morning valley.
It didn’t matter, since the gate was rarely used, the cracked
Tub porcelain hardly abrades the heel. The pickets make
A better lattice for the lilacs; tile sherds can be
Repurposed into tabletop mosaics, held in place with grout
And resin. And now that the river’s been restored,
Duckweed & purple loosestrife line the banks,
And reed canary grass rushes the mountains.
But once, two thousand years ago, we capped a temple
With an unsupported concrete dome one hundred forty-two
Feet across. No bolts or rebar—just aggregate & mortar,
Ash & water. So we learned to vary the structure, see
Where the walls could be thinned. How to coffer the surface
For beauty & weight. How to leave the apex open: an oculus
For light & rain. When we stand beneath it even today, its lens
Becomes our own.
Editor’s Note: The building the poem refers to is the Pantheon in Rome. Built in about the year 125, its dome remains the world’s largest unreinforced concrete structures of its kind, measuring some 142 feet in diameter, the same distance as the height from the ground to the dome’s central oculus.
Jon D. Lee is the author of three books, including An Epidemic of Rumors: How Stories Shape Our Perceptions of Disease, and These Around Us. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Connecticut River Review, Oregon Literary Review, Clover, and Hobble Creek Review, as well as in the anthology Follow The Thread. He holds an MFA in Poetry from Lesley University, and a PhD in Folklore. Lee teaches at Suffolk University and Stonehill College, and spends his spare time with his wife and children.
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