steps

needed front steps, not wood,
in our town it’s normal to call a cement contractor
that’s a guy who has a truck and pours cement
no problem, i’d call a guy, then another and another
the job to pour three steps was too small to be bothered with
they had big jobs, long driveways and whatever
that kept them from my three tiny steps

so i thought and thought - and thought of stone
okay, they wouldn’t come to pour cement,
our house was built in 1838, i’d get vintage stone steps

at the quarry the nice folks said they could do it,
cut Indiana Blue Sandstone that i selected, and deliver it,
set the stone down one , two, three, all i had to do
was provide the dimensions for three blocks i wanted, that was it

i had to prepare the ground, no one else would do it,
so i raked, then measured the first block,
the second had to fit back under the wood of the door,
the third had to be even with the inside floor.
one, two, three

for three weeks i planned. the first time I measured I thought I had it
a few days later i checked my figures and they were wrong, so i did it again
how simple, three blocks, one, two, three on top of each other, that’s it
it was many days to get it right.

on and on i figured stone dimensions, and finally i had it right.
the bottom block was largest,
the second and third were equally smaller.
it all would fit, everything was right.
the day they delivered the stone in a large truck with a crane,
they had one block cut wrong by two inches on one side.

i recalculated and told them how to put them down. one, two, three
in a half hour there were down and perfect,
you can’t see a cutting error.
now we have our three stone steps
the bottom, the second recessed under the Georgian doorway
the third level with the inside wood floor

come back in two hundred years
the house may be gone,
but the steps will be there