Testament to wealth and ease
And built with rugged pride
Masked only by the muddied past,
Ghost houses rise like empty glasses
On a vacant shelf
Their stored cut logs
Stacked neatly by the wall
Waiting for a fire
Pretending to hear the cries of
Summer's new children.

Up the path across the fields
Strewn with pipes and logs and concrete posts
The Emperor's Stone stands sentinel to the past,
Marking the continuum
Of a blood soaked people
Who peer excitedly from inside their caves,
Dazzled by the light
And the smell of free air,
Daring each other to be free.

An old thatched cottage
Wooden walled with windows billowing plastic
Lingers by the Stone
Where a lonely man, drinks away his days
And quietly sings his dreams about the friends
Long dead on some forgotten battlefield or shore
In a ghost house.
Waiting,
Waiting for a call.

First Place Winner, 2017 Voices of Lincoln Poetry Contest