Abandoned

by Joseph J. Biernacki

Where are those places, we once walked, and laughed and fed our need for fears? Do they lay lost, abandoned and decayed or can they yet be found?

They lay rusted and alone

Between the trees

Entangled with vine and limb

Decorated by flowering sumac and creeping jenny

Fortified with wild raspberries and feral roses.

Rail and chain

Cart and carriage

The underbelly of the beast

And the bowels of the great wheel

Lay abandoned

Motionless

Frozen by the welds of time

Cracked and crumbling

Foundations once forged of fired lime.

Lost and forgotten by children

Consumed by life, errant and restless

And the seekers

Most lying motionless beneath the sod of years.

Looted of memories

They moan on windswept nights

For the laughter of youthful voice

And the screams of fear

Not forgotten and without substance.

And those few

Of memory and blessed with fortitude

Who dare to wander

To defy the thorny thatch

Recover the wonder

And the joy

Left abandoned where the roses grow

And stillness consumes

The fabric of illusion.

(February 2026)