foundation tender square they covered up the cracks with cosmetic work, smearing putty and paint into the clefts before listing it for sale. as the house settled and as we settled into the house, jagged scars of shifting plaster appeared above the doorways; the clay soil outside exerted too much pressure on the cinder block stack and it had yielded. removing the pegboard from the woodshop wall, we saw our pyramid of el castillo, a telltale stair step for each day of the year along the veins of mortar—its shadowy serpents slithering out to encircle our feet. 211002 ... tender square there’s a line of five muddy mounds in the backyard—scars from surgery the foundation company performed on our house a week ago. the men left the dirt loose so that it would settle in time, like sands in an hourglass dragged downward. the stabilization process necessitated a standing auger, and someone skilled enough to dig symmetrical circles five-feet deep. in the nadir of the house, workmen drilled two sets of thick metal posts through the concrete and into a wall of clay beyond, extending some fifteen feet from the house, one for each hole that had been excavated. affixed to the end of each coiled tip, metal faceplates were attached, a matching one for inside and a matching one for outside. a large allen wrench fixed the pressure of each drilled post to 75 pounds. every year will require some slight adjustment, some communication with the tension holding the house in place, as water winnows its way through porous patches of clay. they warned us there will still be movement. grass won’t grow on that section of yard unless we plant the seeds that make it so; the mounds are situated at the crest of a hill falling toward the back of the property, a scrap known for washing away what has been sown when rain falls. 211010 ... tender_square the heavy rainfall yesterday left a little lake in the corner of the yard like it always does. but today i noticed that the five mounds were no more; the moisture had turned them to concaved holes—crater scars in the landscape. i trudged out in my black galoshes, grabbed the small, rounded-point shovel from the shed and tried to claw some of the surrounding dirt to fill the space. the clay was thick and weighted, it stuck to the shovel; i had to scrape it off with my treads—the yellowing leaves collaged to the wet paste on my feet, fanning outward. protruding from one of the holes was what i thought had been a long branch, but turned out to be the root of a nearby tree brought to the surface from the auger’s cyclonic rip. i tried to wrestle the branch from the ground; it refused to snap. several blue jays cried out from the bows of the verdant maples around me. all i wanted to do was cry too. 211026 ... tender_square (*boughs not bows) 211026 what's it to you? who go blather from