If Walls Could Talk

Eyes that listen will know a story. The wind whistling past limestone walls on an Ozark bluff, through holes that once wore windows. Soot aging with the stone that wears it. A cellar beneath ruins blanketed with snow. That wind again. Or are those voices from the past, a gaiety that would be silenced by flames that leave the chill of death, even on a summer’s day? Once the snow melts, there will be a rebirth, the forest green again. And voices. Tourists gazing at those bare stone walls and listening for any sign of life.

stark and desolate
the only sign of rebirth
early budding trees
turkey vultures fly above
stone walls that speak to no one

The “castle” at Ha Ha Tonka was built in the early 1900s and succumbed to fire in 1942. The estate is now a Missouri State Park…