Remnants, a Poem by Keith Norris

A cracked concrete slab

strewn with dirt and weeds

creeping from the cracks

is all that remains

of a six-hundred-square-foot frame house

a half century of living and dying

wiped out in an instant by flames

two decades ago.

In the name of urban renewal

the city cleared the lot, but not the slab

the crumbling concrete

like a fading scar from a long-ago fight

is barely noticed by those

who don't know it is there.

The road ambles on

the postman doesn't stop here anymore

as I stand on the slab

where long-dead people once slept

I peer into the cracks

widened by years of freeze-thaw cycles

I see a lone ant

carrying a tiny particle of food

I pause and smile with the realization

that life, ever so precariously,

goes on.

---

Keith W. Norris is an insurance claims professional by day and a poet by night. He is a graduate of Western Kentucky University and attended the Naslund-Mann School of Writing at Spalding University.  He is on the autism spectrum and has Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and his poetry often reflects traits of his neurodiversity. His work has been published in The Words Faire, Half & One, Juste Millieu Zine, and Still Here Magazine.  He lives in Moraine, Ohio, USA, with his family.