By His Hands

I suppose there is not much left the last time I was there a collapsed cistern was trying to eat the house but dreams restore the past I dreamed of it in better days the furnishings marble top wash stands and basins four poster canopies in bedrooms the kitchen and the eastern wing the musty smell was ancestry a plume of smoke was on the hill the Choctaw camp is empty now but still the air must buzz with stories of the olden days the war that passed this way my great grandfather's home was built by his own hands he raised his family there now it no longer stands yet all these generations since a few have not forgotten him the patriarch is yet upon that hill asleep beneath beloved soil