Lightship

Survive long enough, and even
In the absence of great ruin--
War, quake, eruption, hurricane--
You will be bound to remember

Buildings you once inhabited
And were sentimental toward
Never to be revisited
Because they no longer exist.

The home your parents took you to
Torn down decades ago, the dorm
Demolished, the hospital wing
Where you were delivered, transformed

Into ten condominiums
Where you grandfather died, bulldozed
After that for a shopping mart.
They haunt your thoughts. They taunt you

With the thought that what's remembered
Is what could be inhabited.
Correct. The buildings you can touch
Are no more what they were than those.