A Boy in the Bombing

It was a factory once.
Before it closed.
Before it was boarded up.
Before the roof leaked,
the beams rotted
and it all fell in,
resembling one of those historic pictures
of World War Two, the bombings,
devastation in every direction,
waiting for the fire
that will consume what is left.

Not everything,
not everyone,
is restored.
It is the hardest lesson to learn
for someone like yourself,
rubble once,
wanting, like a child, to believe
all things are made new as you.
Even when you know better,
you cling to that one bit of your childhood
like a boy in the bombing
clinging to his teddy.

About this poem

We all have seen the images of the bombings from World War Two, or from the rubble left by storms in Tornado Alley, or…… Physical, mental and emotional trauma. They are crushing. We want to believe it will be all right. At times it will be. Sadly, at other times, it will never be.

And that is hard to accept. For me at least. Some wounds don’t heal.

Tom

PS – the picture is of an abandoned factory in Turner’s Falls, Mass. A few years after taking that picture, it burned.