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.