There is a place on a small island.
A place so full of stories and feelings,
That it feels heavy with them.
Like its history has gravity and weight,
And you can feel the very pull of it.
Reminders are everywhere.
Piles of obsolete household items.
Old rowboats and oars.
A boathouse with an ancient padlock.
The company that made it no longer exists,
But it still works.
And every now and then,
Some surprising and special,
Piece of the past is rediscovered.
Like a horse-drawn buggy,
Forgotten in the corner of an old shed.
Long dead are the horses that once pulled it.
As well as the person who put it there.
Other reminders aren’t so well hidden.
Old farming machinery lying exposed,
In the fields of grass that used to be wheat.
The Old Man and his wife used to make bread,
From their own milled wheat flour.
Until eventually they stopped farming,
And he left the machines lying there.
Gathering rust, abandoned to the elements.
Maybe the Old Man meant to remove them,
But eventually became too infirm,
And died before he had the chance.
Now those rusty skeletons adorn the landscape,
Like pieces of modern art sculpture.
Permanent artifacts, telling tales,
Of the island’s agricultural past.
However, not everything has changed.
The sheep are still there,
Still kept in a two-hundred year-old barn.
And still eating the same grass,
That countless generations,
Of their ancestors ate,
At the place on a small island.