Some years ago, I was a painter. Never an artist, just a painter. I was intrigued by old abandoned houses, and on road trips would stop to observe them and take photos. I think I was drawn to such places, not only by my curiosity of a forsaken place, but for the wonderment of how it all began and how it came to end. I wanted to paint on my canvas, the story, the whole story. I haven't thought on this for some time, but more recently, I've become curious once again about such places and my old desires to paint old shacks and houses has somehow been renewed. Once upon a time, these homes were new. They had smells of new wood, the windows had clarity that allowed the outdoors to come inside. The kitchen perhaps held a family that was happy, that sat at the breakfast table and planned the day. A mother hung out wash that may have included diapers, coveralls and linen. They may have had a girl child, that set under a tree in the yard, reading books allowing her to dream of one day becoming a wife, a mother, a writer or a school teacher. A boy child may have helped his father plow a field, hoping to one day have a field of his own to plow, a wife and a family to care for. What happened in their lives that allowed the house to become old, the wood to rot, the windows to break? I think life took directions they could never have expected.
Abandoned Houses
Abandoned houses are illusion reaching its end;
Wind and rain and time root for the ground.
They have the calmness brought by defeat,
the bearing of farmers who are whittled
and resist no more than enough.
See how easily the earth takes them back;
an eye here, a bone there, the same rite
as with the animate,
The open windows are in the flight path of
night tired and bound for home.~Zorika Petie
