A Place Gone By

Where the river makes an oxbow turn A house had a secure beginning; Whatever the reason, the homestead's bare. A surly wind is having its inning:

Its thumbs have depressed the gabled roof; The clapboards are black with cracks between, The flaky paint is most rained off— Yet the unworked land is showing green.

The earth will be cared for whether or not There are living to tend a place gone by, For the grass will grow to refute the fact An abandoned house has been left to die.