Rubble In a Familiar Shell

You look at the pile of rubble,
a building once. No longer.
Damaged one time too many
until patching and repairing no longer made sense,
and the whole thing was pulled apart.
Rubble.

You have mixed feelings, remembering
being left for dead, human flotsam,
not worth patching or repairing any longer.
And yet, from the debris something new emerged,
somehow both stronger and more vulnerable,

and you remember the journey, the strange sense
of excitement that the old rules need not matter
as they once did. There’s magic in that
and though you would have never asked for it,
you loved the magic of rebirth, becoming new

in a familiar shell.

About this poem

I have started over several times in my life. Once from everything being blown up. Now and again because I blew things up. It’s painful at first, but not always bad in the long run. Starting over has it’s pleasures. It’s nice to be new. Even when you aren’t.

The picture was taken at Asbury Park, at a seaside restaurant that had recently burned down. I knew there was a poem in that picture. It just took a few years for it to come out.

Tom