Cities once so vibrant

After Ephesians 1:20-23, 3:18-19

Those cities once so vibrant,

filled with people and commerce,

sights and sounds, always

the sounds of life throbbing

and growing, cloaking

themselves in proud names:

Ephesus, Philippi, Colossae,

Corinth, and not just Antioch

but Pisidian Antioch as well,

to differentiate younger

from older, Smyrna, Pergamum,

Sardis, Thyatira, Laodicea,

Philadelphia, names flowing

from the tongue like great dramas,

Greek dramas, dramas now shrouded

by the closed curtain, and now

behind the curtain lies only outlines

in stone, implications without certainty,

suggestions only of the wife

shouting down the street

at her husband or child. Instead,

only the sounds of the wind

are heard, wind without memory,

the taste of aging dust.

Photograph by Megan Sanford via Unsplash. Used with permission.