My Lasting Minutes

We raise these walls with steady hand,

to guard the good from shifting sand—

protect what’s precious, bar what’s base,

and carve a path through time and space.

In certainty we stack each stone,

believing deeply what we know:

That right and wrong stand clear as day,

our judgment pure, our modest way.

Yet as the mortar sets and dries,

a quiet question starts to rise:

Do any eyes on earth possess

the final truth of more and less?

We builders, often privileged, proud,

declare our fences wise and sound—

but every line we draw in dust

reveals how flawed is human trust.

None truly knows the full divide

between the darkness and the light.

We shelter dreams, we channel streams,

all while our certainties unravel at the seams.

To be secure we must build in grace,

with humility as mortar for our base.

Maybe such walls will endure as we’re blind—

And in those truths, perhaps we’ll find.

— After Robert Frost's 'Mending walls' (1914)