Poem: If Those Walls Could Speak (Testimony: Teweles & Brandeis Granary)

The granary on Sturgeon Bay’s westside waterfront. Photo by Len Villano.

Sturgeon Bay, 2017

Some look at me, all they see is squalor,

a blocky, boxy blight beyond repair

whose better days, like mist upon the water,

vanished years ago in sun-drenched air.

The seed that men poured through me is but memory,

a history of harvests books might share

if books, indeed, can ever tell the story

of time rooted in distant when and where.

The men who made me named me for themselves,

and in their hubris put their mark on me;

yet they are like the dust on empty shelves

today: my walls still stand for all to see.

My fate is not mine own to repossess;

it’s left for lesser men to manifest.

Mike Orlock is a retired high school teacher who now resides in Sturgeon Bay with his wife of 43 years, Liz.