Dickinson on a summer evening

Lightly stepped a yellow star

To its loftty place,

Loosed the Moon her silver hat

From her lustral face.

All of evening softly lit

As an astral hall-

"Father," I observed to Heaven,

"You are punctual."

------

You left me, sweet, two legacies, -

A legacy of love

A Heavenly Father would content,

Had He the offer of;

You left me boundaries of pain

Capacious as the sea,

Between eternity and time,

Your consciousness and me

The Walls are Coming Down

Wake up to Fanfarlo

A Hundred Houses

Kevin Bauman's collection of 100 abandoned Detroit homes is a sobering homage to the casualties of economic downturn. I love this quote by 2 Modern Design Talk: “His photographs of these once elegant houses are like stoic portraits of aging aristocrats struggling vainly to keep up a proud face in the face of their inevitable decline.”

While that description (which oddly reminds me of Time Regained) might not reflect the disposition of the homes' former tenants, there is an strange beauty to these forgotten structures. A few look like the monster house; others seem like they could still shelter a family - except for boards in the windows and the graffiti on the doors.

In the face of the current economic crisis, it's a reminder that hard times are nothing new. I hope Obama's next stimulus package can fix the roof over Detroit's head.