By His Hands Poem by Barry Middleton

I suppose there is not much left
the last time I was there
a collapsed cistern
was trying to eat the house

but dreams restore the past
I dreamed of it in better days
the furnishings
marble top wash stands and basins

four poster canopies in bedrooms
the kitchen and the eastern wing
the musty smell was ancestry
a plume of smoke was on the hill

the Choctaw camp is empty now
but still the air must buzz
with stories of the olden days
the war that passed this way

my great grandfather's home
was built by his own hands
he raised his family there
now it no longer stands

yet all these generations since
a few have not forgotten him
the patriarch is yet upon that hill
asleep beneath beloved soil