Graham Burchell

Abandoned Farm House

A vision of families,
raised in the dead farm house
glimpsed from a train in Spain,
nearer to Granada than Madrid.

Spirits,
bonded like sunlight and green cells,
grew there and shared
from scratched level fields,
and an olive grove,
seen at speed as a hard worn rug
before stone hills
that summer heat could not crack.

Slow turns of the wheel of time
would have persisted,
just as harvests of sunflower seed
and stone-filled berries,
until the last breath of elders
dried on white pillows,

and the house was a child,
abandoned to nature's
quiet infestation
by one generation, all it took
to lock domestic horns and doors
to memories;
permitting reclamation
of a borrowed space.

Graham Burchell was born in 1950 in Canterbury, England but now writes from his home in Houston, Texas. He is the winner of the 2005 Chapter One Promotions Open Poetry Competition, winner of the 2006 Hazel Street Productions Poetry Contest, the runner up in the 2005 "Into Africa" International Poetry Competition, and a runner up in the 2006 Ware Open Poetry Competition. He was also nominated for a 2006 Pushcart Prize. His poetry has appeared in many print and online literary magazines. His first poetry collection From The Right Side of the Pond (Sun Rising Press) and his second Vermeer's Corner (Foothills Publishing) will be published this year. He is the editor of the online poetry journal, Words-Myth. His website can be found at http://www.wump.net.

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