ABANDONED HOUSES, ABANDONED LIVES

Standing empty, no longer proud
An old two storey farm house is up at the end
Of an overgrown lane. Tall maples being eclipsed
By wild brush and vines once stood sentry along
That old lane. The house is leaning, clapboard siding
Once white and fresh now weathered gray like a cold
North Country day. The roof is bowed the porch floor full of
Open places. Empty windows look out on empty
Fields. Inside the house is littered sparsely with broken
Furniture, things once treasured by a family long ago
Departed.

A cemetery on a hill, twin to the hill with the house,
Tells part of the story. Names and dates, dates lasting nearly a
Century. Children’s names and old people and two who died
In war. Men and women, boys and girls who worked that
Land who laughed in the rooms of this empty, no longer
Proud house. A family through generations, first growing
Then fading away and leaving. The last who lived
Here must have grown weary of the struggle to bring prosperity
To the home, lost their will and could convince no
Others to carry on. No sale made, no taxes paid.
Now just an empty place no longer proud.

The house now abandoned once held hope and love, lives lived
Tending the land and the animals. Lessons and learning,
Work and play, sowing and harvesting all had their times,
Their seasons. There was a rhythm to their lives that is no
Longer felt in the house or on the land. Were those last souls
Who are not resting on the nearby hill, but who lived and
Worked here for a time the people who abandoned their
Lives and this place? Or did they just decide to stop the
Struggle and the fading it caused? New lives elsewhere, a
Springtime in a different place. Was it a gradual thing the
Leaving, a slow abandonment or sudden?

The house holds few clues, the cemetery stones tell only
Abridged stories. But we see the ending, a house empty
No longer proud.

STANDISH ROAD

Almost falling down, the home that was my
Great-grandparents. A big wing on each end of
A center section that once housed a store
And post office. Grandpa would give us a
Nickel and send us up the street to get
Some candy. My Great-grandmother, old
And ailing but glad to see us. My Grandma’s
Sister sorting mail talking and laughing.
A phone would ring, but not their ring,
Someone else on the party line. They knew
Them all and sometimes would pick up the
Phone and listen quietly, then interrupt.
And laugh and gossip. On a warm day
All the doors and windows would be open.
Curtains flapping in the constant breeze.
Comings and goings.
Living and dying.
They did die of course, over the years.
Then so did the town. And it wasn’t so long that
No one in the family wanted the old, run down
House. Year after year it sat decaying and
Dying. It’s still there. Given up for taxes with
Signs tacked up and yellow rope around because
Of the danger. The center collapses more with every
Hard winter storm, and there are many there on
The back side of the mountain.
The sides lean in and soon it will all collapse
Upon itself. I remember it freshly painted and
Clean, clean, clean.
My Great-grandparent’s abandoned house.

STONES

An old cemetery, really not too
Old as these things go, is cut into the forest
Behind the little white church.

I walked there on a clear and cool
Mountain day to look at the stones, some
Bearing my family name.

Passing souls all.

The oldest markers were from late in
The century before cars and all the roads
That carry them.

Then, in those days, it was a wagon that
Hauled a body to these burying
Grounds, or if a child, someone’s loving arms.

Passing souls all.

Many of the stones bear the dates
Of the great epidemic when the raging flu
Took so many children.

Two sisters and a brother my father never knew
Bear those dates. Small
Markers for small children.

Passing souls all.

Those years were a time of war an ocean
Away but there was no way to fight for the little ones
Long gone from the little town.

Many stones are missing from this disorderly field
Or worn to smoothness by years of harsh
Winter wind and snow.

Passing souls all.

Many lives now unmarked and no longer
Remembered have left only the faintest impressions
On this grassy ground.

Some markers are still strong and shiny
Sitting up over others who bore my family name.
Some have a blank for that final date.

Passing souls all.

On one side of the clearing a small niche catches
My eye. Just inside the trees an old wooden cross
Hand carved a single name, a date.

The name is Simmons the date looks like 1937
Or maybe nine. An unfamiliar name in this town
Of French and Irish and Slav.

Passing souls all.

And how does this wooden marker still stand after
So many years when granite has faded and
Disappeared into hollows and gardens?

In truth someone came later, perhaps a son or
Daughter, to mark that last bed of a long dead
Parent, remembered a little.

Passing souls all.

But the price of stone was too high so wood from
Nearby trees was fashioned into this
Cross for this grave.

But this wood marked grave is outside the lines
And limits of the registered and written
Down citizens of the cemetery.

Passing souls all.

Perhaps a mystery is waiting for unraveling
Here behind the little white church whose missing
Parishioners will not talk.
Passing souls all.

RENOVATED MOUNTAIN TOWER

go out on 374 and follow some other
roads towards the back side of chazy
then you'll come to the trail head

climb up that trail, it's steep and some
spots you might lose it but work your
way up because it'll be worth it soon

so you get up to the clearing where
the renovated fire tower points to
heaven and you look at all the steps

after a rest climb the steps and follow
all those rules and instructions and take
your time because you're not a kid anymore

finally up in the tower with your eyes
pressed into your binoculars you look
around and the clear hard blue sky gleams

up north there is montreal, a patch of
smog and a flat topped mountain showing
you where millions of people crouch in their lives

and east is champlain, blue reflecting
blue and green in between stretching like
patched carpet old and friendly and warm

but now look down and the mountain town
sits quiet and the dead sand hill like an
apostrophe marks where the old mine was

the town is not dead but it lives well
beyond its thriving past of train cars and
humming machinery and dirty miners

this renovated mountain tower lets us
see all around and it may be a sign of the
time to come but it can't show us the past

to see the past climb down the tower
climb down the mountain and go to the
churches and the graveyards you'll see it

sit in the legion home talk to the old men
go to the old train station talk to the old
widow ladies they'll show you the good and bad

you'll hear the past and some hope for
tomorrow, you'll learn some history and
tales of those gone on their many ways

but the mountain tower newly painted
and safe again will bring you to a high place
and is worth the climb and effort