Rekindling Old Shanghai
Island School , Kong , Ree Nie - 12
The crumbling bricks , The water , The creepers , It begged me to enter .
Water slithered out of the collapsing bricks . The weather-beaten door beckoned me in . Serpentine creepers strangled the mansion into its grayed , abandoned state . The mansion couldn ’ t have persuaded me more .
Amidst its imperfections , It was flawless in it ’ s own ways . It ’ s potent ‘ Titanic ’ stairways , Its painstakingly carved banisters , The grime-caked bricks , the stubbornly dark balconies , The sun glared menacingly down onto the stiff undergrowth , It was almost alive .
Despite being formidable from the outside , It was quite the opposite inside . Elaborate furniture and laced curtains contrasted with the filigree wallpaper . The building , itself , was a contradiction .
In its own way , the Qiu Mansion was , With its delicate beauty , Labyrinth vines wrapping the mansion like a bushy beard , The towering sea of green arching around it , A masterpiece .
The dim , uninviting , yet musty smell that seemed to diffuse around the house , Weary walls stripped of splendor , The dark abandoned silence , No more laughter of joy , No more pain or grief , No more births or deaths . No more cries of babies , No more children playing in the yard . Cobwebs laced the walls , Picking my way though the rough floor ,