Pieces of me
Crumbling down like bits of an abandoned house
There goes another broken tile
A shard of shattered window glass
An historic stone.

With each gesture of deconstruction
Less and less remains
Of what bound it all together
In that seeming entity
A house, a life, embodied strife
That multi-storied me.

I’ve retired my trowel and mortar
No plans to renovate or re-occupy
Though I admit at times I return in dreams
and encounter the filaments of nostalgia
I once called ‘my past’
But it never lasts.

This letting go is not a giving up
Do not mistake it for neglect
It is merely an absence of occupation
That Nature already busies to reclaim
Like a vacant Badger’s set.