with rust-stained hands
and our knees dusted with soot and red carolina clay
we stood among the metal skeletons,
new relics of twisted form
halted in perpetual ascent to the crumbling walls
and bathed in orange from a winter sun hovering just above the horizon

we wander through a still and eerie scene,
a frozen moment in the slow quiet war of organic and geometric
as we inch our shoes along the top of the narrow walls,
falling ash catches light, recalling its formation
manifest from crackling destruction to land in charcoal hues that blanket the ground.

this little piece of suburban wasteland
a reminder of cleansing fire, thunder from the spheres.
momentarily our minds cease to race through events, seeking to justify the seemingly random
to explain neglect of the highest sort.

in this age
post-postmodern,
we feel alive and bravely secular-
standing in the long twilight, breathing the holy ghost,
corporeal.
memory will not yield, but neither shall we.

we have gazed into the abyss

and everything is beautiful.