I made a little cottage out of straw
and then I raised an edifice of sticks.
They each accommodated natural law,
and nothing stood until I built of bricks.
For straw is fodder for the beastly cud,
and sticks are food for fire’s appetite,
but what can eat a brick? It’s clay or mud
that can’t be used unless it’s fired right.

Adobe is the stuff of my abode
and mortar is the manner of its size,
for they’ll together bear the biggest load,
and I have learned to look without my eyes
at structures made of visionary tricks,
so I construct my innerness of bricks.