Meditations On a Derelict Wharf
The tide worn and barnacled pylons
holding up the wharf wobble
on a sea swell like loose teeth.
Most of the decking planks
are missing. Those that remain
span joists with bones
of rotted wood fastened down
with rust. A chain wire fence
bars public access
and a large red sign
screams a message of danger.
I find myself looking through
the wire, asking who else
would stop by and perceive
a strange beauty here,
that in the wreck
of this derelict wharf,
something immutable
has found a home in the rot.
Its history
is not mine nor does it
conspire with a notion
to snare me with a kind
of enticing nostalgia.
What is here is more like
time chewed pick up sticks
stuck in mud.
And yet I don't know why
I am moved so, standing here
with all the reverence afforded
a relic of something almost holy,
why my pen should waste time
chasing such an elusive presence
around a page.
Perhaps what is here
is an essence of what my mind
cannot grasp, that other,
a mystery imprinted on a finite world,
a longed for sign of hope
in a language known only
to the soul - or is it simply
something more mundane,
slowly loosening the pylons
holding up my brain.
Copyright © Paul Willason | Year Posted 2023
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