Earthfast

Architects plant their imagination, weld their poems on rock, Clamp them to the skidding rim of the world and anchor them down to its core; Leave more than the painter's or poet's snail-bright trail on a friable leaf; Can build their chrysalis round them - stand in their sculpture's belly. They see through stone, they cage and partition air, they cross-rig space With footholds, planks for a dance; yet their maze, their flying trapeze Is pinned to the centre. They write their euclidean music standing With a hand on a cornice of cloud, themselves set fast, earth-square.