Crumbling

Of crumbling, rough brick long overgrown

stands the chimney of my family home.

A single sentinel tall and strong

rising through nature’s wildness long

abandoned to will of leaf and vine.

A shadow of a warmer time

when those men and women who came before

me saw joys and sorrows, sought for more,

shaped a life around hearth-warmed stones

now a proud monument to noble bones.

As I reflect upon their early ways,

the happenings of those pioneer days,

I treasure their gift to me alone

marked by crumbling, rough brick

long overgrown.

1987 © Martha Stoddard