One Hundred Abandoned Homes.

Snow clings to the graceful bones, chestnut-apexed
Lines of what was once mortared tiers and
Clung-upon brick, pillared white and granite pearl,
Sloughed down, bending in obeisance to torrents and rot,
Evil darlings of time. Iced-in highlights rime the sills and
Rim the gables with sunset-rose, wet tiles, Stygian red
Unwilling subjects of quick decades, luminous with
Speed, collared with green algaeous dust; First
in fashion when the bloom of cloistered homefires
Let the porchswings hang among the lilacs, when
Joiners lifted high the roofbeams and moonbeams thrust
Their dreams through the hallway lights, the attic
Quiet and sawdust motes settling for a long winter.