architectural details like these
seem to cry out for a certain attention
and yet, what sort of attention might that be
is it not the touch of time, that careful caress
wind and water, hot sun and hard frost
the constant cosmetics of cosmology
beauty hard earned by ancients
texture, color, and the sort
of je ne sais quoi that comes
from authentic self shining through
laid bare by the exfoliating sands of time
a luminosity of awareness glowing from within
revealed by the removal of all that otherwise obscures –
the materiality of newness traded in for the essence of age