Building Foundations

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Realism. It's not realistic
to build castles in the air
for clouds aren't stable enough
to create a footing,
to be the bedrock.
But have you seen
a house on a truck
poking down the highway
as before and after
the way is made safe
to ferry the house
where it doesn't belong?
And once there,
it becomes a house again
perhaps balanced on a frame
but more securely
placed on cement,
a real foundation
built to fit the house
waiting to take its place.

We build lives sometimes
up in the air, lacking foundation,
a fantasy we would have made real
but cannot. We may have "lived"
if it can be called there for years,
knowing we're not secure,
having no idea how to repair ourselves.
But foundations can be built

after-the-fact, and at last
the house we inhabit
becomes the life we would have it be.