These words scrawled across
the stairwell,
graffiti of tourists,
people who wish to be
remembered,
mar this house
that was not scarred by Russians,
Napoleon, or Protestants,
but from within where
slowly the significance erodes,
crumbles to the ground
with discarded film containers,
paper, water bottles, and
respect once had
for this cathedral,
center of worship
turned into a distraction
for school children,
a place to add to
the photo album.

I have only recently
owned an automobile,
late bloom into American
sun, I can go
faster than when
walking or the bus,
time ever ticks
quickly as light stays
red, an old woman
walks across the intersection,
buses stop to accept
riders, anxious I
become to accelerate
at home and at
work I try to maintain
the same speed, patience
shortens increasingly,
ever wanting to increase
the pace, food devoured
to no taste, in haste
I drive to the end,
passing slower cars
passing the houses, trees
and life on by.

A pair of loons fly off
with the lake
taking the flora and fauna
skyward so their avian
brethren can feed on fish
and plankton without competition
or concern of being pelted
with bird shot
or lured with earthworms to the skillet.
The feast quickly claws to chaos
as the winds spread death swells,
blood and flesh,
piscian parts tumble terrestrially
away from carnage and greed
that empties this heavenly pool
and fills it with waste, excrement
extruded to make room in the crop
for mother meal that has disappeared.