Digging For Bones Poem by Robert Matte Jr.

From that house there has come so much life that it ought
never to die or fall into ruin.... ~ Pearl S. Buck


Rolling back the odometer of time on a
short trip to the Sunshine State in all of its
palm treed and Spanish mossed glory, I drive my
fourteen year old son to see the old homestead,
a weather worn wooden two story gimcrack
that defined my grandparent's retirement years.

Perched on a small lake, algae filled and alligator
friendly, the sleepy house had more stories to tell
than a wizened Florida Cracker in peak form. As
a small child I pried all the secrets I could from
the badly slanting rooms and hidden staircase.

My grandparents, in their increasing dotage, shared
family history in fits and starts, sepia toned memories
from a world shorn of anything "modern." They spoke
of fancy cotillions, of young men in smart uniforms,
of that jostling first ride in a mud spattered Model T.

Our anticipation piqued, my son and I drive down a
dusty road lined with orange and grapefruit trees;
I picture my grandfather endlessly filling basket after
basket with pungent fruit while grandmother makes
hoecake, chicken steak and black eyed peas, a ritual
easily conveying her deep Southern roots.

Rounding the final corner for the first time in countless
years, I expect the old place to welcome us as humbled
prodigals finally returning from some foreign land
with Alfred, the family dog, barking us up the driveway.
However, the homecoming is empty; the house is gone.


A scar of gravel and sand marks the outline of where it
once stood. My memory balks at the empty space,
my son looks as if he were promised a gift that was
never delivered. The small lake still beckons, with only
a rotted dock and broken oar as its aged siren song.

I sit on the elephant gray stump of an ancient oak tree
remembering a long ago summer day when grandmother,
her intent face wreathed in steam, lets me scoop orange
preserves into shiny mason jars while on the front porch
grandfather, his calloused hands moving in a deep rhythm,
planes smooth the pine boards for a new rowboat.

As we return to our rental car, fixed on leaving the moment
in the rear view mirror, my son picks up a small piece
of scalloped woodwork that might have adorned the gabled
roof of the old house. He carefully hands me the faded
memento and I smile slightly, a father and son marking time,
the brittle talisman forever connecting my past to his future.