For Lucy, who called them "ghost houses." <br /> <br /> <br />Someone was always leaving <br />and never coming back. <br />The wooden houses wait like old wives <br />along this road; they are everywhere, <br />abandoned, leaning, turning gray. <br /> <br />Someone always traded <br />the lonely beauty <br />of hemlock and stony lakeshore <br />for survival, packed up his life <br />and drove off to the city. <br />In the yards the apple trees <br />keep hanging on, but the fruit <br />grows smaller year by year. <br /> <br />When we come this way again <br />the trees will have gone wild, <br />the houses collapsed, not even worth <br />the human act of breaking in. <br />Fields will have taken over. <br /> <br />What we will recognize <br />is the wind, the same fierce wind, <br />which has no history.<br /><br />Lisel Mueller<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/scenic-route/
