Dancing to the Blues

Your eyes find them, the ruins among us,
places other people’s eye slide past,
you instead, rest, linger,

It is not exactly a savoring,
but an appreciation for the power of neglect,
the power and danger of it,

of anything left to its own devices, unmaintained,
as if there was some eternal power
in deep walls and foundations.

There is not of course. Roofs rot.
Walls fall down. Foundations crumble
without acts of love tending to them.
The strength and thickness does not matter.
All things, left alone long enough, fail.

And failing, long enough, are lost.

You love such places. You linger in them.
Breathe in their air, breathe out your own,
a single song of rejoicing

for the things lost,
things rebuilt,
and things discovered anew.

None of it possible
without at least a taste of death
by neglect.

About this poem

I am feeling particularly grateful for my life these days, even with the cancer treatments and concerns, I have so much good I find myself near tears (of joy) now and again.

And I truely do not think the life I have would be possible without the things I have lost.

Dancing to the blues,

Tom