Ode to a Deserted Cottage
By Norma Parkinson Post
Tired, old, forgotten, it stands
With broken, cobwebbed windows
Like bleary, sightless eyes,
Mute evidence of age and desolation.
What lives, what happy thoughts,
Were born, have lived … and died here?
Did childish faces press against the panes,
Panes shining from the care of loving hands,
Save where small hands pressed moistly
While waving farewell to some departing loved one?
Through sagging door and open hearth
Time and seasons each has left its gifts
Of dust and leaves, soft blanketings of snow,
With kindly thought to hide the scars of age.
Alone it stands, untenanted, save for some
Sly, mischievous, curious squirrel, which,
Searching for nuts, scampers fearlessly
Across its doorsill, stops, sniffs, departs
With disdainful flirt of fluffy tail;
Or gorgeous painted butterfly,
Winged spirit to some fair departed flower
Fluttering aimlessly through its empty eyes,
Flutters, and is gone, taking with it
That brief ray of sunshine and life, leaving,
Once more, loneliness and gloom of memory.
(1954)
Kinda sad. Heavy.
The image of the deserted cottage reminds me of the abandoned farm homesteads dotted throughout the landscape as one travels along Interstate 15 near the Utah/Idaho border. For my wife and I, the sight of these deserted homes always makes us a little pensive and sad. But who knows? The reason for their abandonment could be some unknown good thing; maybe the owners got better opportunities and were “movin’ on up” to another bigger, better home? Still, an abandoned, decaying home is a pathetic thing to behold, probably because of all the connotations that homes have to life and family.
I was thinking of those same kinds of homes along I-15, David, except the ones I visualize are along the Utah-Arizona border.
Ten years ago I visited to the abandoned house in Northern Idaho where my grandfather was born. My cousin visited it this year and took photos. It is still standing, but the lean is precarious. We didn’t dare enter a decade ago, and now any attempt to go in would bring it down. But great grandma announced she was no longer moving from mining camp to mining camp and moved permanently to the family ranch, so for her, it was a better situation. For one thing, the mining company owned that house, but she owned the ranch.