Houses

Our elderly suburb quietly
transforms as old unkempt
houses are trucked away one
by one from yesteryear’s
large sections leaving swathes
of empty ground to send up
rough clumps of herbiage
where vegetables once grew,
hens clucked, scratched for
juicy insects, tender shoots.
Bare soil with random concrete
blocks is all that remains
where family homes once stood.

Fruit trees covered with moss
leaves black with mildew
stand deserted near rickety
back fences, straggly hedges.

Many town dwellers no longer
grow their own food in
this helter skelter century.

Old houses lose their paint
are divided, rented out to
those who use them as a
base to sleep and eat until
at last they are jacked up on
to trucks, dispossessed from
their long time dwelling places.

Several little modern homes
are built on each section
with little earth of their own.