Interpretation of the api forgets the building is a verb

The Poet on the api forgets the building is a verb

The Poet What does this sound like when it sings?

still

i. spec

Here is what you may ask. Here is the shape the asking takes. Here is the shape of what comes back.

Nothing about the other door, drawn in March, argued over, rubbed out in April by someone who no longer works here. Erasers leave no endpoint.

Ask for what was fought for. Ask for what no one ever dreamed of. The same three digits answer both. The server cannot tell a grave from an empty field.

 

ii. descent

The app leans on the framework, the framework on the runtime, the runtime on the kernel, the kernel on the chip, the chip on a tolerance, the tolerance on a night-shift reading of a gauge, the gauge on a standard, the standard on a committee, the committee on a quorum and cold coffee,

and the quorum on

 

(listen: nothing. listen: it holds.)

 

iii. glossary

Promise: to send forward. Every layer is a letter mailed to someone not yet hired.

Contract: to draw together. What it draws together, it also draws shut.

Version: a turning. With each release the building turns over in its sleep.

Deprecate: to pray a thing away. We still do. We set a date and pray.

Foundation: from fundus, bottom, and from a root marked with an asterisk, which means no one ever heard it said. Even the word for ground stands on a guess.

 

iv. seam

A null where a name should be. You lean in. The wall is warm.

Behind it, someone keeping a word. Behind them, someone keeping theirs. Behind them

and the looking will not finish, and the floor does not fall.

 

v.

Don’t call it a building. Call it building.

Say it is standing still, and mean both stills: the one that does not move, the one that has not stopped.