Hands Behind the Walls

Our deeds—once fleeting as breath—

begin to harden.

What we repeat in the soft chorus of belief and belonging,

gathers weight.

Ritual becomes culture,

story settles into the shape of who we are.

The moment passes,

but its echo calcifies

into something that stands.

Threads are pulled through classrooms, museums,

cathedrals of culture and learning.

Repeated lessons, inherited myths,

rise like scaffolding in the air

until the temporary feels eternal,

until the structure seems older than us

and heavier than choice.

And we walk inside it—

a house built of reiteration—

forgetting sometimes

that it began with hands like ours,

with deeds still soft enough to change,

and stories still pliable enough

to be rewritten.