Re-wilding
Even architecture grieves
The knots are loosening. Ancient joints of oak and iron finally surrendering their grip on the myth of wholeness. The sealed away. The safe.
For an age, I was a silhouette of avoidance. A relic of denial standing against the dark edge of the forest. But the dreams have arrived. Ambiguous. Tugging at my hearth, reminding me that to be seen is not the same as to be understood. To be lived in.
The world out there is wrapped in soft blankets of wildflowers. Yet, there you are. Drowning out the birdsong with enforced walls. You have forgotten the scent of jasmine in the air. The way you can almost taste the first warm breeze when it lingers on your lips. But me?
I am exposed.
I am a body of stone learning the glory of the atmosphere. And I am tired of being a monument. Weary from these straight lines and hollow rooms. For decades I stood behind my own facade, convinced that to be complete meant to be impenetrable. But now I am learning the art of falling apart.
I want to be the overgrowth. I want to be the moss that forgets the boundary of the door and the wild violets that do not bother with the burden of time. They tell me I should stay upright. Sturdy in the routine of the seasons. As if love does not speak in masonry.
People see my jaggedness and call it haunting. I call it perseverance. I have stopped shaming the cracks. Even architecture suffers losses. And grief is not a structural failure. It is a collaboration with nature. It arrives both slowly and all at once. Like water. Like fire. Like air through trees, howling through the windows. It is the storm that breaks the floor to find the earth below.
You cannot fix the rain.
So instead, I let the weather sit in my halls. The heat. The cold. I let discomfort move through the corridors until it is no longer an outside force. It is a reclamation of my own wilderness. The ivy climbs my throat now. Untamed and honest in its embrace. Holding me together in the places where I broke.
I am a sanctuary for the unmade. The taboo. The owls nest in my rafters because I have stopped pretending to be separate. Other. That faulty divide is a specter that has finally gone. In its place there is the smell of wet soil. The vibration of the stars. The deep sigh of relief when you finally stop fighting the sky.
Let me be a beacon of both the divine and the decayed. A miracle of architecture and light. I am not a ruin. I am the place where the world finally got in.
My favorite library in the falling snow
I appreciate you reading. This piece was written in response to Sam’s Spaghetti photo prompt.
Thanks for being here.
Until next time,
j
This is glorious. Such beautiful imagery. 💖
This is an exceptionally breathtaking piece... reading it again (and again) makes it more (and more) beautiful to behold.