After the Walls Have Fallen

Early in the morning, it looks nothing like a resort.
There are no people.
The building, once a temple to temporary pleasures,
is gutted.

A breaker wall of massive stones, serve
to protect what is left,
until powers to be decide what is saveable
and what is not.

It is beautiful. That is what you believe.
Even now in its temple ruins, it is beautiful.
You can almost hear the crowds on a summers day
as you feel the chill wind blowing off the ocean.

You pull up the collar of your flannel shirt.
You listen to the waves. The odd seagull scavenging.
You are here for a day, no more,
and yet somehow, the place has crawled under your skin.

Places do that.
Buildings and landscapes and ruins sing to you.
They haunt you long after you leave,
and somehow are never cleansed from your soul.

It is as if you feel the ghosts in them. They follow you.
and in the quiet moments,
come back to visit,
living long after the walls have fallen.

About this poem

About old buildings, certainly, which I have a deep affinity for. About broken lives too, which surround us and sometimes are us. About the ghost of faith that many carry with them.

The picture was taken in Asbury Park, NJ. A place I spent a day in last year, and feel drawn to go back to someday, in the off season.

Tom