I went back,
\nand took photographs of the past.
\nWhat\u2019s left of grass and old weed.
\nHouses that remain,
\nready to be called to oblivion,
\nthe house of my birth,
\nthe street of my childhood.
\nAncient memories.
\nGranite stones that glitter
\nwith quartz faces.
\nLooking down the deserted avenue
\nof Warren Street,
\nSandusky as it was,
\nold ghosts remaining there,
\nthe railroad tracks gone,
\nthe separated street
\njoined by a boulevard of gravel and weeds.<\/p>\n
My heart thins in the paleness of the sky.
\nIn the camera it is a vast emptiness.
\nA street somewhere in a place of empty wind.
\nOpen.
\nOpen as if everything was blowing away.
\nNothing brought back.
\nHouses being deserted.
\nWindows left open.
\nRafters howling above the vacant corners.
\nI was not lost.
\nI was not sad.
\nI felt nothing at all,
\nor at least nothing that wept,
\ncalled out,
\nhuddled from the openness.<\/p>\n
The people were gone,
\nthe houses made of cardboard,
\nmildewed,
\nsagging from the years.
\nI was not here
\nwhen the last soul deserted.
\nWhen someone with tired eyes
\ngazed at the street and died.
\nMy voice lost its sound.
\nMy lips did not move.
\nI did not call out
\nor tremble at my loss.
\nThe photographs will help me see
\nthe curtain of the day
\nclose on the bay.
\nRemind me of what happened.<\/p>\n
I remember the ephemeral dandelions,
\nviolets, pennies smashed on the rails
\nby the trains.
\nThe rest is the Pillars of Hercules,
\nthe lost country of childhood,
\nout into a clouded sea,
\nleaving behind these remains.
\nWhere is my home?
\nWhere are my loved ones?
\nWhere did daytime go?
\nIt is so open,
\nso barren,
\nso like an ocean rushing away,
\nas I look into the shutter,
\nand catch the last rays of sun,
\nfalling in the water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I went back, and took photographs of the past. What\u2019s left of grass and old weed. Houses that remain, ready to be called to oblivion,…<\/p>\n