OBSOLETE
by Jim Kittelberger


The rays of the sun slant through unwashed windows, illuminating the
dryness of age in this forgotten place that stands by the side of steel tracks

where weeds now grow; where once great iron locomotives came, paused, then disappeared; where now only the sound of dried leaves skittering along the ground interrupt its sleep.



Benches along the wood paneled walls remain highly polished from
the multitudes of trousers and dresses that once buffed their
surfaces.



Bars of the ticket agent’s window, a patina of age upon them,
still guard a long gone presence that once routinely and officiously
charted the journeys, the count of which befogs the counter.



This forgotten structure, with walls that were once yellow,
green or red, chipped away by weather and neglect has turned
gray now as if to accommodate the modern world by becoming
as one with landscapes of the past.



Yet, to forget so easily this creation of its time as a discarded
relic, would bury all that we were that lives still in the lazy sun lit
dust of memory and where we too will assuredly abide one day.