Rust and Memories

It was a power plant once.
All steam and activity, heat and electricity.
Noise and valves and pipes. A living thing.
The secret center of a living plant
that once was, well, alive.

Today, it is a different thing,
a museum. Sound is piped in
to give you a hint of what once was.
A foreman’s voice. A slow drip of water
that does not actually exist.

It is all rust and memories,
not unlike some of your own.
Kept alive through artificial means
while you sip your coffee early in the morning,
happy enough in the now, in the waiting

for it to all unfold. Waiting for the changes
that make memory necessary. Oddly content
with the uncertainty.

About this poem.

Monday we were down (For a Southerner, calling Massichutsitts “down” still feels weird even after 13 years) at Mass MoCA, the museum of contemporary art. One of my favorite things there is the old power plant. Left largely in it’s abandoned state, except for the piped in sound. I make a point to go there every time I visit. And every time I visit, I get a new set of feelings.

No wonder I keep going back.

Tom

PS: The post on the artist date at Mass MoCA is coming. Maybe later this week.