Once a modest home by the river
rented out by the Park Service
then not rented, then abandoned
to neglect and weather and rodents
then torn down, turned to trash
the trash trucked to a dump
leaving behind a blighted scar
by the river, the wasted land
partially repairing itself
but nothing grows more
than a few inches
eaten by hungry and rapacious deer
only a cinder block, remnants
of a chimney, a fuse box, and a forlorn
wire hint at a lost history;
yet in early Spring, unexpected
clusters of yellow daffodils brighten
and enliven this scar, a reminder
that this empty forlorn space was once
somebody’s home.