Empty

Empty A hammock swings to and fro in the wind As if propelled by an unseen foot. A tricycle lies abandoned by the porch, One handle grip with its multicolored Streamers long gone, a wheel missing, Its once-resplendent pink paint eaten with rust. The “For Sale” is old. It sways tipsily, Tilting in the wind, covered in graffiti. Where is the little girl who used to play In this lonely and forsaken yard? Where is the boy who whiled away the hours Reading and dreaming in the hammock? Where is the mother who tended these gardens, Now full of weeds, and the father whose children Greeted him joyfully at the end of the day? What calamitous series of disasters Befell this family, to force them out, To make them leave the home they loved? Maybe they sleep now in cheap motels and Eat their frugal meal at a breakfast bar Or live in a noisy, overcrowded shelter. Or do they move from place to place, Rootless, living in a car, dreaming of that Joy-filled home they left behind, a lifetime ago? The staring house now stands bereft, Bewildered, wondering - where is the family that Once lived and loved inside its empty shell? It seems to wait in loneliness, pining for Those happier days of oh, so long ago, While the hammock swings to and fro in the wind.