cold

Too often the cold is associated with an emotional feeling. Usually one that expresses depression. And sometimes too, the cold is associated with the lack of emotion, energy and movement. Here it is cold, but not depressing, and not emotionless. The cold is thick, weighted with water from the lake. The cold here does not stop when it pimples the skin into goose bumps, and instead persists till it unites with marrow of one's bones. The air of winter in Cleveland is no less vaporous during inhalation than it is in the opaque exhalations or one's breath. The water of the lake coats one's lungs and transits into ones circulatory system, until it it indistinguishable from the person them-self. Cold is lively and dynamic, and just as fleeting as the warmth.

building

They removed the outer most layer, a carapace of dark Plexiglas and plastic from the late 1980s. And beneath that Gordon Gecko facade was another. Bit by bit a crimson brick exterior was once again exposed to the suns strong rays. Fluted columns with Corinthian tops parted the recently knocked out windows, and separated the penthouse from the now cloudy sky. Each crease and pit was blackened and grayed as it went along with century old soot. Which at one point rose up from its smoke stacks in midtown, or the flats, or perhaps the near west side and made it's way here, only to be embalmed in a plastic time capsule. The soot of the porous sandstone which makes the Garfield monument hasn't fared so well. Sitting high atop the heights of the east side, this stone was once a prominent location for the collection of factory byproducts. A slow death of industry has choked the much needed flow of particulate, leaving the strong winds and rain to wash it clean.