Overgrown
With weeds
And laced
With morning glories,
The rutted gravel road
Still leads to
My grandparents' house.
Now abandoned
And fallen into disrepair,
It stubbornly remains
Upright, with only
A window or two broken
And the screen door swinging gently
On creaking hinges.
The years fall away
And it seems I can hear,
Over the laughter
Of the creek
At its back,
The faint sound of
My grandmother calling
Her children inside
For dinner
And the banging of a hammer
As my grandfather tinkered
With an old Buick
Beneath the ancient walnut tree;
But the sounds
Are but fleeting memories
Imprinted on the homestead
Over two lifetimes ago
When the world
Ran slower, and simpler,
And time was something
There was no shortage of.
I come here to reconnect
With my roots
And the ghosts of the past,
Allowing them to soothe away
The worries of my modern life
And to remind me
Of the preciousness
Of  belonging.