A farm ruin

There is a little road that I like to walk, and when I do I have an unusual sense that I am in a place of timelessness. The feeling of peace is tangible and I like it. I try to analyse it. Maybe it’s that there are no electric or telephone lines. Or maybe it’s the ruined farmhouse that attracts me with it’s walls hidden behind ivy and it’s fat curving chimney, all that I can see.

But the last time I walked by, I saw that everything had changed. The ivy had been cleared, the walls were exposed and a pile of stone sat waiting to be carried away for sale. I saw the nineteenth century fireplace and the twentieth century concrete yard.  I realised that the farm had been a home and occupation, perhaps only fifty years ago. And now a memorial of lives lived has all but disappeared and in it’s place a rectangular concrete bungalow.

What lives have lived in this stone shelter?
Who was born, and died in this bed?
Who remembers the brown eyed girl who loved a soldier,
and the faithful dog that slept beside,
Imagine white pigeons aloft the tower, and
the orchard blossom in Spring,
How sad I feel for a home and occupants,
Life past, and lost.