Summer Stay

After a long day of travel and a night of uneven sleep, I slip out of the house before everyone starts to gather and head out for a walk. Halfway down the block I pass a dilapidated, one-story house on this block of fancy, remodeled homes. I have walked by it dozens of times and never quite noticed the dead Elm standing in the heart of its wild field, nor the uneven line of an old stone wall further in, nor the beat-up truck hidden in plain sight beside the beat-up barn. The reason I haven’t seen this place, why no one but the neighbors sees this place—and then only to grumble about property values or imagine what they’d do with this land—is that it no longer belongs here, not in this condition, not among all these tricked-up homes. I don’t see it because I am not expecting to find the past plopped square inside this shiny present. I ask about the property when I return from my walk, passing up through a young apple orchard, and learn that it is owned by an old man. One of two brothers still alive, he’s ill and so doesn’t come out much anymore. The family, I am told, has let the property go; it’s expected to sell, and there is worry that another McMansion will rise up in its place. Why this expectation, this worry? Might someone in the family decide to keep the house, to fix it up and start a new brood there? Or maybe a young couple buys the land and midwives it even deeper into its wild state. Start a garden. Raise bees. Cut down the dead tree and plant a new one. Fix up the stonewall and talk over it, like Frost, with the neighbors further up the hill. This is what I imagine as I head out the next morning, again searching out a little solitary time. I resist the urge to trespass further into the field. Most likely this place will be gone the next time I come here, and maybe I won’t even remember its former presence.