One section of Sweet Juniper is photos of abandoned houses that have been reclaimed by nature.
Inspired by this, I thought right away of a property by my folks. This place sold for $2.2 million a couple of years ago. The entrance is now chained shut with a rent sign jammed in front. The wife and I decided to jump the fence and go exploring... I mean, looking for our dog.
The weeds and grass are so tall it looks like the house is sinking.
At least the birds have turned this house into a home.
This is the back of the house. The blacktop area is big enough to land a helicopter. So many homes have a one car garage, I can't imagine having six bays.
Beyond the house, down a dirt road is a massive metal barn.
Lo and behold the side door was open and inside is where it got very interesting.
Apparently, we were not the first to find our way in.
Up stairs, into the loft, we made a discovery.
These are rolls of blue prints; the things the American dream is made of.
The person that lived here and built this place was an architect.
We made our way back to the road and I looked back at the house and property and thought of the dreams the man who built it must have had. And then I thought of Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem Ozymandias, it goes like this:
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
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