Home » Poems » Elton Camp » An Abandoned Pioneer Cabin

An Abandoned Pioneer Cabin

An Abandoned Pioneer Cabin

By Elton Camp

There it is, way off to the right side
A home where a family did reside
I mightn’t have seen as I drove by
Except a chimney still stood high

I wonder who, with labor and care
Took the time to construct it there
The best stones were set aside
All found on the mountainside

People could only use what was free
Chimney from rocks, logs from tree
Although he was not very skilled
Each man his own house did build

Only a single room it once had been
Sheltering a young couple within
But as the nascent family grew
They added rooms, one, then two

There was no mortgage to pay
Such wasn’t the pioneer way
Luxuries they never knew
Nor any “Joneses” to outdo

It was much the same everywhere
People lived simply, free from care
There wasn’t any reason to feel bad
You don’t miss what you never had

There it was still possible to tell
Where the family had dug a well
A pile of ruins did betray
Place where the privy lay

The family’s barn collapsed long ago
Scattered, rotted logs its location show
The cabin has been empty many years
Never again to see either joy or tears

And when more time has passed
There will be no trace of it at last
When the chimney crumbles away
To eras of time the place falls prey

To me it really seems a shame, though
A family lived there but none will know
Thus, each time that I pass by
That place I notice with a sigh

Post Comments

Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.

Please Login to post a comment

Barbara Gorelick

Date: 4/20/2014 2:43:00 PM

I love this kind of poem..visions of the past fading away. There is an old grave site form the 1800's on a hill in an open space near here..I love to look at it and wonder about the guy who is buried there. Thanks for sharing such a nice poem. BG

Elton Camp
Date: 4/20/2014 4:58:00 PM

Thanks for reading and taking time to comment. The area where I live has a good many log houses from generations past, most of them uninhabited and slowly falling into complete ruin. At my grandparents house there were four graves far up into the woods, each with rather elegant marble markers with name and dates back in the 1800s. Nobody knew how they came to be in such an unlikely place and they were never visited except by me when a little child. I was rather fascinated with them. I doubt anybody has seen them in the last sixty years. I made a final attempt to visit them again before we sold the home place a few years ago, but it was so grown up with bushes and briars that I was unable to find them. It seems incredibly sad to me that people can be totally forgotten like that. Elton