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HAUNTED HOMESTEAD
(Old Langhorne Place, St. John's County, Florida, 1947)
That last time over there, pulled
by our own chill bumps, we stood beneath
the great oaks, studying the rotting pile
of lumber that had once been the house;
pondered the sunken plots in the family
graveyard; walked past the concrete pit
where they'd dipped their cattle against ticks;
reflected on the broken machinery of another age;
played rough and tumble on the hill of bleached
sawdust where the lumber mill once stood.
We wandered the orange grove where the long
trunks, black with age, lifted their fruit beyond
our reach. Conspired against the ancient trees until
arrested by the frantic blur of rattlers, the sudden
black and yellow diamonds essed across the path,
disputing our presence.
Afterwards we tramped homewards on
the sandy, weedgrown road that weaved
among cypress swamps, while George told us
about the two Langhorne sisters who
kept their long-dead brother and old black servant
sitting in the parlour for the longest time before
the outside world came in and took them away.
After which we said little more but
walked the long road home, our diamondback
trophy with trailing bloody head dangling over
the bamboo pole held between us.
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