The Old Farmhouse -

Poem about an old farmhouse.

The Old Farmhouse

I ain’t what I used to be.

Seen too many winters.

My steps creak, my porch is saggin’,

and half my shingles is gone.

But I seen a lot in my day.

Got to know folks.

That farmer and his wife—they came here

when they didn’t have a lick of sense.

She finally got some.

He never did.

They done like married folks back then.

Had babies, worked with the sun, worried over bills.

Waited for rain.

He plowed the fields, tracked dirt over my floors.

She planted flowers at my feet.

Sometimes in the evening, after he’d fall asleep,

she’d bake bread in my kitchen.

I always liked it when she baked bread.

They done some hard livin’ in their time—fifty-three years of it.

‘Til his heart gave out.

They told her to leave then, those kids of hers,

all growed up and moved to the city.

What do they know, anyway?

Now the youngest pulls up in his fancy car,

threatens to tear me down again.

But he’ll forget about me.

When it’s my time to go, I think I’ll sink quietly

back into the ground, the scent of her flowers in my nostrils.

God, how I miss that woman!

***

The Old Farmhouse