Vacation Photo Poetry Prompt

I imagine that people who live in around sites and vistas begin to not realize how wonderful and amazing their local attractions can be. This makes me wonder if I take for granted anything that is local to New Jersey.

NJ does have its fair share of things to do and see — green pastures, waterfalls, hiking trails, quarries, boardwalk games, amusement parks, rivers, lakes, farms, etc. There is a reason it is referred to as the Garden State. I also recognize that we have world class indoor activities – music venues, theaters, museums, etc.

However, local is local. There is something that happens when you step outside and away from the known. By transporting yourself to another part of the world and seeing something for the first time, there is an appreciation that occurs.

We arrived too late to go inside Trim Castle. Plus, within 30 minutes of our arrival it began to pour rain in buckets. My photos are therefore few and only of the exterior and grounds (which technically encompass the entire town of Trim).

Regardless, it was the very cool remains of an enormous feat of Masonic construction. The main ruins standing tall with pieces of the original city wall scattered throughout the town.

The Castle Ramp

Walking up your cobblestones
Imagining all the people who stepped before me

Manor lords
Servants
Peasants
Merchants
Minstrels
Vagabonds
Conquerors

Horse drawn carriages and
Mule drawn carts

Your ramps hold the stories of a thousand travelers

Your bastions tales of valor and fear

Your dungeons the politics of centuries

Your turrets a view of changing landscapes,
the modern age and the times before

I am enthralled with the history lost inside your ruins

As I walk through you, I read the engraved metal plaques. . . And I know a truth

It fills me up and leaves me empty

History texts are often notorious deceits

We mostly know only the big and vague stories of your stones

We don’t know the thoughts and dreams of the many people who inhabited your bedrooms

Did they know there was a million stories in the world?
Births, Deaths, and entire lives they’d never know?
Did they live with love or sadness?

Did they yearn and learn the secret madness that is this world in which we live?

Did they realize commoners from across the globe would wonder their stories centuries later?

Walking up your cobblestones
Imagining all the people who stepped before me

 

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Photo prompts are by me and for me. This poem edited on August 1, 2019 following my first public reading.

#OTR50
227 Days to go.

© Randi Sumner