Long New Old & Gone

Everything was new
The concrete was smooth and white
Glass so clear it was almost not there
Metal polished to a mirror sheen
Reflecting the sun in a blinding gleam
Cutting through the eye in a flash and bang
Time almost standing still
A Polaroid of perfection
With some Sharpie notation

Until one day everything was old
With cracks in the cement swelling in green eruptions
Windows smudged and dirty with "Wash Me" instructions
Corrosion pockmarking the alloys
Flaking apart with intergranular tendencies
Just as surely as with a deftly placed wedge by a woodsman
Time is still frozen but has clearly progressed
The instant photo of the day hanging yellowed from a tack
Marked in black writing of days long past

Then everything was gone
Dirt and grasslands drifted over man made rock
New crystal silicate joining the natural sands
Iron oxides and aluminum hydroxide blowing in the winds
Salting the soils of faraway lands
Poisoning and coloring the ground
Time is meaningless with none left to count it
A piece of film left sticking from the earth
A haunting unidentified image of a now fantasy ghost