Abandoned Farm

I cannot see to write too well
For my eyes are filled with tears;
I weep for the days that have slipped away--
The nostalgia of by-gone years.

Weeds vie for the choicest place where once the hollyhocks stood guard. Poison ivy covers the tool shed where once each item hung from its own nail or stood in its own place in line against the wall. The barn, once stacked high with bales of fresh-cut hay, now stands bleak and empty (while the uncut hay droops its heavy head listlessly and waits for the wind so it can fall to rest.) A piece of loose tin rattles its warning on the wood shed roof. A door creaks eerily because a rusty hinge has lost all its screws. A broken limb hangs dejectedly from an apple tree. Chimney sweeps inhabit the chimney no longer used for no fires are ever built. The mud wasps display their artistry on the back porch walls. And if you look closely, you can see a miracle in architecture created by a spider on the front porch banister. Within the house itself each piece of furniture stands in its favorite place. Each chair invites someone to rest a while. Pictures still hang on the wall, and curtains adorn every window.

In the kitchen dishes stand washed and clean in the drainer on the sink, and on the back porch is stacked the wood all ready to kindle a fire in the old green-and-white cookstove from whose oven has come some of the most delicious and nourishing food ever prepared by a woman’s gentle hands.

The rose bushes, once so tidily trimmed, run rampant now along the front yard fence, their waving tendrils catching at anyone who passes by. The old clothesline, so faithful for so many years, hangs broken and rusty from its post.

No one watches from the window or greets you at the door. Truly, this is a dreamhouse, for only memories live here. All the cherished lovely memories of a lifetime of love and happiness inhabit the empty house we once called home. Yes, the house is full of furniture, but empty--empty because the two people who brought life and meaning to it are gone--one to claim her eternal reward; the other to wait his summons to go to meet her.

Billie A. Venable