BRIGHTON.

I stand alone on soil scarred red

by man’s ambitious plans

whose metals blades and clanking tracks

despoiled my sacred spots.

This altar of my distant youth

denuded of its green

no longer keeps the pleasant ghosts

of those I knew and loved.

The ghosts of men and women nice

and children of my age

of things we did and things we felt

and can no longer feel.

The temple walls lie on the ground

unable to recall

the pleasant times of yesterday

a part of me is dead.

It makes me sad to realize

young men like once I was

will never know and love this place

for man’s ambitious plans.

But from the hill, that naked knoll

the ocean same stands forth

and saves me from a growing fear

that part of me has died.

For in its blue and diving birds

I see things as before

when red soil once was verdant green

and young boys loved it so.

The ocean smell blows past my nose

and for a fleeting while

the ghosts come back to visit me

and politics be damned.