Oh poor abandoned house,
how sadly the afternoon sun strokes your ivy-bearded face
How dejected your once proud roof,
now the slates have slipped and lie shattered like dreams on the ground
How wistful your dense front yard
the plants bowed and motionless as mourners at your funeral
Weeds poke from your gutters,
sad lashes on eyes that will never again see
Your windows gone, the wind howls
like a lost child at your rugged bones
The sky blue peels from your front door;
sharp flakes litter the porch like confetti from a party that moved on years ago
A hundred childhoods watched over, kept safe within your sturdy arms
and this is how they repay you?
You who have tasted so many summers and listened to so much laughter
now stand vacant, unloved, forlorn.