Beautiful Ruins

It’s life is nearly gone, drained slowly
in a long litany of “hail well met” and
the lies of “all is well.”,

Weeks, months, years
of struggle, of putting your struggle
on display like fine art

left in the rain,
where storms and sun
were off the perfect patina,

something the world passing by sees
yet doesn’t see, a vague image of decay
on the periphery,

it’s falling apart so slow,
it seems to be part of the ages,
eternal rot, a gorgeous ruin

waiting for salvation or collapse,
for someone, anyone to see the beauty
of the bones

and care enough to stop
and take it in, to see what is,
what can be, that

every ruin that still stands
has the soul of a temple,
waiting to rise again.

About this poem

I hate to see the slow decline of old homes, barns and buildings that slowly decay and fall into ruin over years and decades of abandonment and neglect. I see so many of them in my travels.  And then that day when I pass one of them and they have fallen in? I inevitably find myself deeply touched, visibly sad.

This might be due to my love of old homes in general, or perhaps it runs deeper, having lived a struggle to hang on myself, through depression and other slow rot that consumed my spirit in plain view.

So I know that it can happen, that falling slowly into decay and brokenness  and how so many just watch, some noticing, some not, until it all falls apart.

But I also know that as long as the bones are there. As long as the foundation is solid, in both houses and hearts, there can be restoration. If it is a theme in my poetry that you see often, that is only because I believe so strongly in restoration, redemption, and resurrection. There is always hope, if there are people who care.

The picture was taken at Belle Grove at Port Conway – the birthplace of James Madison and an example itself of a home fallen in to near ruin that has been raised back from ruin and will soon be a high end Bed and Breakfast and gathering place. The same can be achieved with people.

Tom