Ruins

Saltwater was in the air in a way that is both foreign and fresh to my nostrils, and I slowly inhaled, feeling a sense of vitality seeping back. The waters sparkled and purled their way to the shore, embracing the sand and kissing my bare feet. Its coldness gripped me, and I began to look around. Behind me are the remains of what appears to be a place of grandeur, rotting under the afternoon sun. The dimming sunlight illuminated the darkness of crumbling walls, fractured windows, disintegrating stucco and forgotten pavilions surrounded by a penumbra of decay.

As we traipsed along the shore we saw signs of neglect, collapse, age, indifference, ruin. Deserted, the resort--as well the ones adjacent to it--was devoid of even the slightest hint of occupancy except for a few locals silently sidling past. Ignored, abandoned and wearied in spirits, the place has lost its radiance and fallen into ruin. Only the ebb and flow of the tides keep it alive.

From age to age, throughout his lonely bounds
The crash of ruin fitfully resounds;
Appalling havoc! but serene his brow
Where daylight lingers on perpetual snow;
Glitter the stars above, and all is black below.
(William Wordsworth, 1854)