WHAT WAS AND WHAT IS

Dog Walkers -- October

Until last spring
we could walk our yellow lab
down a rutted stony lane
flanked on both sides
by dock, thistle and dandelion

till we came to charred wood
that once was a home
and next to it what must have been,
years back, a small barn.
Just beyond it stood

the only building that had
survived the fire. Across the top
of the door some wit had
painted in bold precise letters:
Ye Old Outhouse.

All of it has disappeared.
Big earth-moving machines
scraped and smoothed it
all away. New houses have
sprung up like mutant mushrooms.

Now we walk Dinah somewhere else.

　
Contractor -- Last January

When we draw up the master
plan, let’s have the street
run between these two foundations.
I think we can use some of those
stones somewhere or maybe
we can sell them to whats-his-name,
that old guy over in Waynesboro
who still does mason work.
Do you think any of the wood
from that old outhouse is salvageable?


Home Owner -- November

Well, we did pay a little
more than we planned to
but we really like it.
The contractor promised
we could move in by
the first of last month
and he only missed it by
a week and a half.

Yes, it’s a great view to the west.
That’s the Tuscarora ridge
over there and I’m told
that the grove of cedars
down there used to be
a home for deer.
The neighbors are nice,
I guess, we don’t really
know them very well.
Lots of kids though.

Come on in. It’s turned colder.
I think Kelly has coffee on.

Oh, it used to be a farm.
Last week a man and woman
came by, walking their dog,
said there back of our garage
is where the outhouse was.
Hard to imagine, isn’t it?