Alone.
The assembly lines stand abandoned.
. Support stations silenced.
The floor is covered in bleak layers of ash.
The unbroken quiet, broken by drips of quickening sorrow.
This place was once full of sighs and hand-me-downs
. Now even they’re all gone.
The walls still show signs of attendance.
Yet, no manner of violent remonstration,
. rage or fomented frustration,
can remove the grey from this calloused remembrance.
. Even if their inhabitants failed to provide subsistence
This ground held promise.
. Now that’s all spent-slash-squandered.
The leftovers were nothing; nothing worth noting.
Like scattered mines,
. Each empty barrel and bin are filled with charges of antecedent chagrins;
Shadows of a generation that never gave thought to the world of tomorrow.
Upwards the frame is shattered, its roof left mangled;
. bright orange lines of rust stains run down what’s left of each pillar.
Tear-shaped lines of yesteryear move even the most thoughtless of listeners.
Then rising unnoticed, begins the slow ascent of the impossible and the peculiar.
Engravings marked by an outward light,
. pierce through the silted darkness.
Then hands reach down and dust off,
. grace-breathed Petroglyphs of the once familiar.
.
(©RL2016)
