MASON & THE STARS
© 2026 John F. Sendelbach
Years ago I worked for an astronomer — built a landscape for him, up on a hard, rocky ridge at the top of the world, all open sky and stone. There was a pond down the low side, and a patio to set right against the water (which is about the most technical thing a builder can be handed, because water does not forgive). There was a tower with a roof that opened to the heavens, a collection of gems and specimens fallen from the sky, and a black snake that would appear now and then in the warm rocks like the spirit of the place come to check the work.
At some point he looked at the stonework and did a rare thing: instead of handing me a picture, he handed me a rule. Turn this stone, then the next one from it, then the next — each by the same odd angle, zero, thirty-three, sixty-six, and on around — and let the sequence run. It was a deliberately increment, a near-eleven-fold turn that reaches for the full circle and misses by a whisker, the kind of geometry an astronomer sees and a practical hand almost never does. And I understood the mission: that the sequence was the work. Fudge a single stone to make it “look better,” and every step a person took afterward would pass over the exact place the rule broke. So I laid it true, permanent, into the ground — a small human copy of the same turning that governs galaxies.
We worked that hard design out together, an astronomer and a mason— just two people trying to make something that would hold. Then the years came full, and the rivers ran, and we drifted the way people do. Life so wide on each side there wasn’t room to keep the other in view. This song is the answer to that. Because the stones never drifted. They’re still up there, still turning, still holding the rule exactly as it was formed — and if you listen, they’re still quietly singing it. The song is me finally hearing that, across all the years, and singing back: I never forgot. The thing we made is holding. The turning still turns.
Rendered with AI, brain steered...
LYRICS
star.....star.....star.....star.....star.....star.....star
…half a world away, the two of them, chasing the daylight strange…
…the astronomer and the one who loved him, off across the world…
…they stood where the moon slid over the sun and the noon went cold and dim…
…partners, adventurers, hand in hand, and she just watched the shadow fall and smiled…
back on a rock at the top of a ridge, all open sky and stone
a man who read the galaxies, and a mason called to hone
the hard design into the hill — every angle, every line —
we worked the trouble out together, and we made the whole thing shine
he said, “turn this one, then the next, and let the turning run —
zero, thirty-three, and sixty-six, till the circle’s nearly done” —
and I understood the mission — that the sequence was the whole —
skip a single stone and every step’s a memory of the fault in the soul
so the mason laid the progression, and the astronomer read the turn —
a rule made out of angles, and a hand that made it burn
into the permanent ground, where it holds ten thousand years —
oh, the mason and the stars, and the ridge, and all the years
…gems from the sky, a black snake in the grass, a telescope up top…
…the hardest patio, hard against the water, a thousand ways to fall…
…we worked it out together, angle by angle, stone by stone…
…then the years came full, and the rivers ran, and we drifted, and we grew…
…no falling-out — just a life so wide there wasn’t room to keep in view…
and it’s still up there on the ridge, every turn just where it lays —
zero, thirty-three, and sixty-six, still holding, all these days
the rule survived the making, and the making holds it true —
oh, the mason and the stars — and I never did forget you
zero…
thirty-three…
sixty-six…
and round…
still there on the ridge…
permanent ground…
still there on the ridge…
permanent ground…
still there on the ridge…
permanent ground…
star.....star.....star.....star.....star.....star.....star
After a long, tricky chapter, the creative spark came back hard — and became a run of AI-built concept albums. I work from an "upside-down pyramid": start with a base of raw material or a single idea, build the album's architecture and full tracklist BEFORE writing a line, then generate the songs last. I dial in lyrics and a musical style box with AI, hand it to Suno to render, and steer through re-rolls until each track hits. Once it clicked, it became a flow state — sometimes two words were enough for the whole system to understand the assignment. That's how the concept trilogy (Sixty Square Sphere, Domes All the Way Up, The City of Record), the twelve-song Halfway From the Ground, and the standalone Fistful of Change and Bach's Bugs came to be, with a Buckminster Fuller record now rendered and more in the wings. I supply the framework and the taste; the machine supplies the render. The work is the negotiation between them.