As Long as One Brick Stands

The walls have fallen.
The glass has broken.
Bricks lie in piles around the foundation.
Ceiling beams have fallen.

There is a temptation to believe
the old factory is beyond restoration.
But you know better.
Everything can be restored

with time and patience and work.
Never perfectly. There will be scars
and the new work is never the same
as the old.

But as long as one brick stands,
so does possibility.

About this poem

A poem about restoration and old buildings. And a celebration of my own journey, and that of others.
Nothing has only one later. Not life. Not poetry.

The picture was taken in Turner’s Falls, Mass.

Tom