Boarded up

This downtown Portland building has clearly gone bust, but the boards that cover the lower windows, the architectural details that remain, the textures, and the stains all strike me as incredibly beautiful, despite being beyond the breaking point. It reminds me of a terrific short poem by a woman who participated in a writing workshop for homeless women in Seattle:

WILL I EVER
live somewhere

Where the hallways
don't betray evidence

of

Someone
Beyond/their/Breaking/Point?
--Marion Sue Fischer.

in Beloved Community: The Sisterhood of Homeless Women in Poetry. A WHEEL Anthology, 2007.

This remarkable book was a gift to me from my friend D, who is a family member of Marion Sue Fischer. The book is still available from Whit Press.