A place of former habitation

now degraded

disregarded

and unguarded

its garden a tangle of bramble

a battle of nettles

forlorn thorns

and overthrown lawns

what enigma is hidden

beneath its heavy ivy overcoat?

what tale of abandonment will be revealed?

maybe its interior is derelict

unsafe and claustrophobic 

its rooms shrouded in 

a gradual accretion of dust

a pinafore hanging on a door

places set at a table

the trouble taken

over a meal never taken

toys sombre after childhoods

of excitement and exploration

curtailed by the games of adults

by the mystery of growing up

the heartbreak of having to decide

mundane objects

on shelves in cabinets

drawers handbags and boxes

or under beds

may have held a significance 

far outweighing their outward appearance

modest treasures promised to family members

keepsakes that were not handed down

a Bible open at a page

but what page?

what book?

its remembered names 

the family names

and those names

that were their own

no one else's

inscribed for some sort of deluded posterity

in the land of God and his enforcers

and the erasure of the seasons

the clouding of happenings

in the sedimentation of time