Moscow Metro Station Mosaics III


There is no equality nor competition, only the complicity of all who conspire against emptiness and non-existence.
--Osip Mandelstam


A smell in the air of dust and exhaust
Buildings facing up to the street
Walled off courtyards of weedy green
Discarded coils of rebar
Cars jacked above their axles for repair

Men in conversation or quiet concentration
On unending tasks at hand
Sitting on upturned crates
Necks bent forward and down, sucking their cigarettes
Leaning into the wheel, wrench on knee

A sense of something not quite ready
Of something not quite ruined

Not neglected, nor cared for
Neither in the service of Another
Nor in service to oneself

Not in the service of God
But only in His Name