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Silent Spirits

image copyright Fred First
I've hurried past so many times without noticing this old church on a side street in Riner. Yesterday in the drab, sullen morning, I pulled off the road and stood in front of the place, imagining the lives that were celebrated in birth and mourned in death inside those frail and failing walls.

So still, empty and gray. Abandoned and forgotten. But life goes on. Tendrils of Virginia Creeper cling to the rotting wood, give color back for a season.

Inside behind shuttered windows, rodents rejoice. It is eternally dark where many souls once saw the light.

This ole house is a-gettin' shaky
This ole house is a-gettin' old
This ole house lets in the rain
This ole house lets in the cold
On his knees I'm gettin' chilly
But he feel no fear nor pain
'Cause he see an angel peekin'
Through a broken windowpane
(more lyrics to This Ole House)

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Comments

The perfect cover to a Gothic rock album...

Wow, that is a pretty creepy scene.
(And double wow, if I actually manage to comment on your blog again. =P)

Fred, thanks for reminding me of that song, which I may have last heard when it was on the radion in the late 50s or early 60s (I think).

Larry

"Sullen"--dang, Fred, that's GOOD.

Travelling through your neck of the woods many years ago, I was amazed at the number of almost-there, long-deserted buildings peeking out from field and forest. Here in South Africa they would have long been demolished for firewood or inhabited by the displaced.

I too wondered at their history - the old place on the way to Calhoun that looked as if it had once lived with a large family, but was now leaning toward a sheltering tree, the shiver-me-timbers standing stark against a winter forest in the Smokies, testament to the fact that something wooden was once built there.

If only these walls could talk...

i LOVE this photo. you have a marvelous eye, and you show us your view of things in such a refreshing manner - both visually and verbally! thanks!

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