When cutting capstone, carefully
measured, from a larger block with
nothing but hammer and chisel, you
come to know the necessity of blister-raising
toil to achieve envisioned result.
No guarantees are to be had, of course. Sometimes,
despite calculated scoring, tracing a careful contour
across one edge, ‘round to another, and another, and yet another,
with metered strokes and measured aim (fingers
are no match against the carom of sledge)
the rock stubbornly declares it own gnarly cleft.
Some fractures are costly; some rocks
just don’t cooperate in the prestige of
being mortared atop crafted columns.
(But even these—the jagged rubble hidden
behind hewn face—have their
anonymous, reinforcing roles.)
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