A couple of years back, a photographer friend of mine and myself checked out a small abandoned industrial zone in the periphery of Bloomington. We went there on a frosty Sunday morning and likened the experience very much to going to church.
Large storage buildings now serve as meeting halls for lost souls,
piles of card board provide a scripture without words,
stained glass windows tell stories of distant suffering,
unused screws (not nails) draw like grass in the sand,
and the mandatory relic doesn’t promise any hope.
The place now has been demolished. Too bad.
The cardboard scriptures may not have words written on them, but when my eyes trace the edges that are jagged and soft and sharp and worn all at once, I feel satisfied and almost soothed; the sensation is similar to that of looking at a mandala. But while a mandala aids in achieving a meditative state, these scriptures of yours make me feel only more and more unsettled, and unable–or at least unwilling–to look away.
LikeLike