Falling Down Too

Just an old shack to some,
to others a photo op
or highway pit stop
on that long road from
Gillette up to Cheyenne.

The roof is slowly falling down
and the windows missing,
through openings, birds sing.
Porcupines and field mice brown,
scurry about again and again.

Once a rancher lived here,
struggling to raise a family
in a land wild and free.
But soon his wife saw clear
ranch life was too mundane.

Loneliness was the man's burden.
solitude like the Wyoming sky,
with no one to ask him why,
such is the way with rugged men.
If they possess tears none see them.

One lonely winter night he died,
with no one near to know
why he wandered into the snow.
Over his pall no one cried,
they just laid him on the open plain.

The house was abandon by all.
Trail grew into road and Interstate,
smooth blacktop, fast and strait.
The old house began to fall,
beat by snow and summer rain.

It slowly sinks into the ground,
a little more dilapidated each year,
and I fear the end is near.
It may slip away with no sound,
narry a gasp or groan of pain.

Just an old shack to some,
to others a photo op
or highway pit stop
on that long road from
Gillette up to Cheyenne.