Circa 1886

It was our personal private clapboard galleria
Circa 1886 traditional pioneer family habitation
Gasping now the last breaths of a departed generation
Outflanked by more contemporary brick fascia dreams
Two-car garages cluttered all up with import SUVs
Bass boats or lawn mowers  mechanal muscle machines
Defiantly standing firm on seven thistle-choked acres
As renegade wisteria vines smother white-washed walls
while solemn ghost-rider ancestor stand sentry in halls
Integrated carnival and depression glass relics
Crammed elbow to elbow on communal knick-knack shelf
Each some gothic story to tell now kept quietly to itself
There,Aunt B’s hand sewn quilts  each scrap a stitch in tune
Careful in the kitchen there a film encases the gloom
 of residual pork sausages and country egg sunrises
and skillet cooked splatter-burgers with freezer fries
Redbooks and Reader’s Digests heaped up in head high stacks
Was the latest news  those yestdays, but nobody much looks back
Look! On top of Grandma’s Singer parked Papa’s replica Conestoga
Hand crafted to  acurate scale and whittled in complete detail
Propped up there in the corner still  his axe for splitting rail
Decorative bags stuffed fat full of Christmas past and mildew
brim full of baubles boxes and bows  Re-gifting as a virtue !
School Days photos levels 1 thru 12 uncle Eddy was scarecrow thin
Moth-pocked and moulded church clothes and bonnets from way back when
Her great-granny's glasses and jewelry transport us back to the day
when the greatest of sins was to throw anything at all away!