Always on the skyline,
And in the landscape of our lives.
So familiar its outline,
It in spite of change survives.

Or so it seemed until we saw,
The abiding seeming gone.
Its plot and all it meant no more,
Just void where light once shone.

It left a hollow, a sadness, grief,
A quiet comfort sudden lost.
Inpatient time; imprudent thief,
To which no possible riposte.

Though never will that space be filled,
As sublimely as before.
The ferment will in time be stilled,
The pain of loss no more.

And in its place, soon something new,
That will slowly be revealed.
Which from it's majestic forebear grew,
And by which the gape is healed.

And in time the loss is full restored,
A grand new edifice complete.
The landscape with new beauty poured,
The stricken view again replete.

We'll not forget what once was there,
But is gone and now replaced.
And will no less than we did then care,
For that which so long life was graced.