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.