Victim of Beauty

It has taken a long time for the vines to grow so thick,
a slow binding of wood and leaves crawling over windows
and around pillars. Someone chose to leave them,
chose to let them grow into a strange, choking beauty.

Now, it is a landmark.
People go out of their way to see the house with the vines,
the swallowed house. They point and take pictures.
It is too famous to cut away.

So, each year the windows darken a bit more.
Here and there a brick is pulled loose from the mortar.
Barely noticed. But a slow murder, nonetheless,
a victim of beauty.

About this poem.

Happens to houses. Happens to people. Poetry is never about one thing.

The picture was taken at what was once Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont.

Tom