The Broken-Hearted House/Poem/Bette Wolf Duncan

Abandoned, sad, old derelict;

it waits upon the plains,

scoffing at the storms that lash 

its weathered, worn remains.

Waiting, waiting, waiting

for a family long time gone.

The house just stands there waiting

but the folks have all moved on.

The parents both are long since dead.

Two sons died in the War.

The other kids are married

and don’t live there anymore.

As winds whip through its crumbling cracks,

a scampering, camping mouse

listens to the moaning

of the broken-hearted house.

A nearby weeping willow

sheds floods of leafy tears

as the broken-hearted derelict

remembers bygone years;

recalls its humble start-up

when the family was quite small,

and three rooms and an attic loft

sufficed to house them all.

But then the little family

Into a large one, grew;

and like the ever swelling flock,

the little house did too.

A wing grew on the east side;

and another on the west.

The family grew and prospered;

and the house was richly blessed.

It remembers still the baking bread

that always smelled so great;

and the family round the table

saying grace before they ate.

and the rooms that rang with laughter

and, most times, with good cheer.

And everything about it said.

“A family’s living here!”

Now the sad old house stands waiting,

just waiting there bereft;

waiting for the happy clan

that long ago all left.

The winds race down the chimney

and go rumbling down the halls,

and flog a whip of prairie grit

upon the crumbling walls.

When the storms rip through the windows

you can hear the sad house moan;

and in the battered attic,

you can hear the timbers drone.

Outside an owl and, now and then,

a sharp-tailed prairie grouse

hoot in cruel derision

at the broken-hearted house.

© 2010, Bette Wolf Duncan
This poem may not be reprinted or reposted without the author's written permission.