Random Rays of Light

A few bricks on the side lack mortar.
The window lacks glass.
The doorway lacks a door.
Vines tendril through a rotten floorboard
but it is dark inside and the leaves are a bit withered.

There is something inside you compelled to restore.
You have learned the art of starting anywhere,
using your own life as an example,
a ruin made half new, half restored, no master plan,
simply a start. A bit of propping up here,

replacing there. Looking over and over
at the holes and rot. Doing a bit of thinking one day,
stabilizing the foundation.
You are sure there are better ways.
more systematic.

But this is your way, a bit random.
driven more by heart than logic and plan.
A vision that shifts, focusing here, then there,
at what you can do, not what you should.
Likely maddening to others, but this is your journey,
your restoration, and you will trust that,

as long as you do something,
go somewhere, patch what is in the way,
eventually the ruin becomes a home
worth living in.

About this poem

A poem about restoration, a bit of autobiography thrown in.

The photograph was taken at Wilson Castle in Proctor, VT. It was a greenhouse once.

Tom