shrine of the dendrites (2012)

shrine of the dendrites (2012)

brandon lee kramer

between galena, il and dubuque, ia is a small abandoned stone building, pillaged by a unforgiving, weathered time. the western sunsets reign over its decaying last gasps. sprouting dendrites of a sickly brown grow at the base of its convoluted foundation, blurring the distinction of passer-byes: those still willing to feign a vacuous glance. there, amid the moss and mold is a morceau of what freedom was, what our homeland was founded on. when the fox co-existed with the bucolic whispers of mother nature. when the finch sang in an unabashed melody of adolescence, not fearing anything -one with the stars- before they were just that. would whitman or thoreau divulge petty secrets to the tree frogs if they were still here?  warn them to be patient, assure them of an eventual coup d'etat against the foolish harlequins of the mississippi harbor? or would they rather hold their tongues? like i, like we, should? waiting. waiting. waiting, for them all to devour themselves in the push-button politics of our au courant debacle. if we just sat quiet, minds deaf and hands still, maybe we could hear the echos of chernobyl and auschwitz, of waterloo and thermopylae, pleading for a tranquil homophily to bleed through. to espouse, not divide. we could, we can be a consort for the novel, the most romantic of sorts. one that finds a refined valor in the decay of defiled -tested and true- world we are now: the lost time of a lost world. 

Brandon Lee Kramer © 2012