What was once

What was once upright
rigid brightly painted or gray
is resting
tired
from a violence
absent of aggression

* * *

I can not claim to know what was once. Here.

From one perspective, I gape at walls and floors and ceilings draped over one another. I stand upon, step over fissures in the road. I listen to stories and gasp, knowing that I am only an observer, but not the only observer.  My own perspective quite the same as many, except that I am probably more intent than most on getting a good picture of the fissures in the road to impress my geologist friends.

From another perspective, this event has been measured by standard metrics: Richter, deaths, displacement of people or earth, monetary value of infrastructure destroyed.
 
Heisenberg was right. Absorbing light off the white rubble changes its direction, phase, superposition, tint, interpretation. Putting a number on this scene affects it.

* * *

I have seen the palace and the jail, the cathedral and the bridge. Each of them have split in half and what was once proud is crass.
I did not enter convinced by ghosts and twisted iron bar that locks inside some stories that only come from far.