Just a Smidge Stronger

You never see the decline, day to day.
Never see the clapboards as paint, bit by bit, flakes.
Falls away, exposes the raw wood.
Never see the floors and mantles inside
as they grow grey with age.
Now and then, perhaps, you notice a window pane
as it breaks and falls. Each small loss nearly
invisible. But even though you do not see it,
the neglect takes its toll. There is a weakening
that comes from abandonment, and it will
claim its own, inevitable and quietly relentless.

You feel places like this in your bones.
They are touchstones, reminders of a life of abandonment,
of being told, without words, you are not worthy
of the work it takes to save. That whatever you are
or were, neglect is preferable to the daily restoration.

Don’t tell me self-care is selfish. It is not.
It is preservation, doing for yourself
what others do not, will not. A building,
like that house you pass each year until it falls
can not save itself. But you can.

And so each morning you pray for the strength,
that each puff of dust you become
as people and things leave you,
can become something more solid as you age,
sistering the bones with faith and a hard-headed gentleness,
equally unseen as the threat of rot,
but, if your strength holds, just a smidge stronger.

About this poem

One of my great fears is that as I age, I will become too weak or weak-willed to do the work of being normal. That I will not have the energy to fight my natural melancholy. It is work I do every day. Also, a poem about my love of abandoned buildings. Poetry is never about one thing. Neither is life.

The photograph was taken in Botetourt County, Virginia. Many years ago. I wonder sometimes if it is still standing.

Tom