Homecoming

The tall red stack of sun-baked crimson bricks
Stands like a beacon to familiar eyes,
And that particular crimson color
Is to some fantastically nostalgic.
The playground lies abandoned in the back,
The tall ghosts of slides and of monkey bars
All surrendered to some ages long dead,
The loss of which many still cannot bear.
I remember the halls of that old place,
Before one bright day swept them asunder.
They were filled with children and with laughter
Or some other joy I can't remember,
And there were adults of the wisest sort,
Men and women whom we once admired.
The air smells of dandelions and grass
Safe from the janitor's menacing blade
That would oft long ago release their taste.
It looks altogether miserable,
Made an outcast by the outcasts it made,
Or perhaps by the miserable wills
Of too many miserable people
(Or by both, because they are the same thing),
And I cannot honestly claim surprise.
Nothing so good as that once seemed to be
Can ever survive the future's menace,
And this place - well, this place - is dead to me.

5/4/05