Going Back
Going Back
By: Tom Wright
1999-2008
My Grandparents old house
Stood amid tall Buffalo grass.
Grandma did all that she could,
trying to give it some class.
When winters were tough,
cow "chips" they would burn.
Even they weren't plentiful,
so each kid searched their turn.
The walls were of logs,
"Chinked" up with blue clay.
That my Grandpa cut and hauled,
twenty miles I'd say.
The roof is now gone,
and the walls seem to lean.
The area's no longer remote,
wild, or pristine.
The old mercantile store
That stood ten miles away
Is no longer to be found
Time, shortened too, its stay
Their water was carried
from a not to distant stream.
A cistern in the yard
was once, their biggest dream.
But that all suddenly changed
with the discovery of oil,
Now scattered are pump-jacks
Oil tanks and bad soil.
They soon moved into town
Taking one old milk cow.
Ten or twelve chickens
Two hounds and one sow.
They had water in the house
And gas lights on the wall.
Facilities that would flush
And extra beds when I’d call.
They had salt pork for breakfast
From their churn came butter.
With fresh “cows milk” to drink
Warm, not long from the udder.
At times I become engrossed
In how life was back then.
Though those times are long past
I’ve yet visions of when.
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