Plywood

Not oak,
not cedar,
not some proud tree
cut whole from the forest
and carried in one name.

Just layers.

Thin sheets
pressed together
grain running one way,
then another,
each weakness crossed
by something that will hold.

It is not glamorous,
this kind of strength.
It does not shine in the catalogue
or ask to be admired
for its natural beauty.

But it stays.

It bears the weight
of shelves,
of rooms,
of ordinary living.
It learns the quiet art
of usefulness.

And perhaps that is how
some hearts survive:

not as a single flawless piece,
but in tender laminations —
sorrow, laughter, memory,
habit, hope —
each laid over the next
until something sturdy forms.

So let no one tell you
you must be made
of one pure thing.

There is courage too
in being assembled,
in being mended,
in becoming strong
by layers.


-----------------------------


🌆 Electron City — with Alan’s stanza

In the beginning
there was no ground,
only a hum
and a permission to move.

Buildings learned how to stand
by agreeing not to fall,
streets curved
because straight lines felt lonely.

Every resident carried a charge
but no one owned it.

No doors ever close—
only probabilities narrow.
A window is a question
asked in light.

Messages travel
faster than footsteps ever could,
arriving as color,
leaving as heat.

And somewhere,
between two almost-places,
a citizen pauses—
not fixed,
not lost,
just likely.

In the world of waves, as glows spark and spurt
We look to what saves, the showing of harsh hurt
Could a probability be sitting in stability
Or should the possibility grit its own fragility

Because the temporary becomes transition
And exemplary is only ambition
For the path is pitted perfection
To the collapse of our own perception

Be at a crossroads and gaze up and down
A view is more than looking through frowns
The shimmer and shout of the city dwells
And we can find a ring to our bell

🌌 And I’ll carry it just a little further:

The bell does not ring once—
it resonates,
a waveform folding back
into its own beginning.

No edge is final here.
No state is owned.

Even the hurt you named
becomes a frequency—
held,
then released
as light.

And the city—
never still,
never broken—

simply continues
in pulse.