Ancestral Vacation Home Poem by David Welch

Dirt road lined with walls of stone,
run right up to the small home,
rust red siding coming in view,
in my head it's still cedar, blue.

Sugar maples line a big field,
in march syrup we will steal,
vast open space on a hill,
where once cows did eat their fill.

Ancient giants in the trees,
some with knots, sign of disease,
one split trunk, a lightning strike,
still alive, since before Ike.

Waving grass across the slope,
sometimes deer, but mostly no,
groudhogs search, wanting to eat,
hayed yearly, sold off for feed.

On the house, a massive deck,
a new one, the last one wrecked,
view to the north, in good sun,
sees distant Mount Washington.

Inside is the fireplace,
built way back in olden days,
massive field-stones found nearby,
shunt the black smoke to the sky.

A big table grandpa built,
difty years, we use it still,
kitchen that is way too small,
oven dominates it all.

All built back in the sixties,
grandpa sick of the city,
back when the land was still cheap,
when the tourists weren't so deep.

Though I guess I'm one of them,
and so will be my children,
when I'm gone, their kids will roam
our ancestral vacation home.