Abbot Farm

I remember you standing there in the morning mist,
an old gray farm house with rambling front porch
bent under the weight of many years,
tired from supporting winter snow and being beaten
by summer rains.

Your outbuildings were still scattered around,
squatting here and there,
like chicks with a bit of freedom
from the mother hen,
content to explore a bit
as long as they didn't go too far.

Upon the edge of the parking lot
for the shopping center
known as Abbot Farm Plaza, you stood;
a welcomed, weathered face
in the early mornings
when father and I would drive
into town to get day-old produce
and out of date cereal and bread
from Pepe Coulombe at the Shop and Save.

Recession hit our town
and more stores closed in the plaza.
The empty spaces waited customers
who no longer came
to visit empty, shuttered shops,
gathering dust behind closed doors.
Still the old farmhouse stood,
a silent sentinel guarding a dying kingdom.

The bailout came after years it seemed.
Money was pumped into the local economy.
The floundering mall was bought and renamed.
An old empty farm house
sitting by a newly revitalized mall
really wasn't in the plans.
One foggy day the firemen came
with ladder trucks and bunker gear
and great ceremony
to do a controlled burn.

Slowly the ladder was extended,
fire applied to aging roof shingles.
A spark caught and flame jumped about,
while the men waited below
to keep things going right...
Soon enough the old farm house
was just a pile, charred and smoldering.
Such is the legacy of a tale
a hundred years in the making.

Bulldozers, bucket loaders, and trucks
took away all the unburned pieces
and buried the cellar hole in rich dark soil.
Now grass grows next to smooth black top,
and those who come to shop
just see an empty field of green.
A farm was sacrificed for future beauty,
that old house a fading memory.

I remember you standing there in the morning mist,
an old gray farm house with rambling front porch
bent under the weight of many years,
tired from supporting winter snow and being beaten
by summer rains.