Yarrow House

Visit to the Old Homestead with my Grandmother

The field is bare.
She peoples it for me
with long dead ranchers
and children playing
in among the rocks.
She sees it inhabited
with invisible families.
Now only the wind whispers
over two fenced graves.
“Our little brother lies there.
See, the fence is good still.”
There are no other signs of homes.
The earth has sucked them
back into the ground.
The hills are luminous
with a hard and penetrating light.
No memory will cast a shadow
here when she is gone.

Published in The Immigrant, Court Street Press, (1984).

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Onetime reproduction for non-resale purposes permitted by the author with the following credit line: by J Yarrow