abandoned spaces
When I drive through the countryside, I am drawn to the sight of abandoned farms or houses. I wonder why they have gone from being loved and used, to being alone.
abandoned farm buildings
Sometimes, the leaving is from economic necessity. Sometimes the last one who lived or worked there has died or moved on. Sometimes the government decides it can’t provide services anymore to out-of-the-way places. Occasionally, we are just seeing a moment in time, and new tenants and new life may be just around the corner.
an abandoned house
During the Depression, in the 1930s, many farms out west were abandoned because the combination of eroded land and poor economic conditions made staying impossible.
The poem below was written to remember one such place in southern Alberta. In the 1960’s, we went there once with my Dad, on a drive to explore the prairie roads.
Why do we abandon the spaces we know best?
The Reason for Leaving
~
1964
~
I remember the place
without texture
a line drawing
plainly coloured
~
two tracks on the prairie
one to come
and one to go on
~
a grey house
on a rise of green
(not grass, just green)
the door fallen away
~
a brown canal
still, without depth
sluice gears and flood gates
making the most
of insufficient water
~
and a bridge, also brown
boards laid without nails
~
~
1933
~
the truck
heavy on the driver’s side
steps down from the bridge
(the bridge ironic)
(three years, the Creek’s been dry)
~
in the rear-view mirror
a wooden house
on a low hill
a thin brown wind
and thirsty grasses
~
only the young ones
turn to stare
~
home
now hollow
stripped of voice and windows
the door left open
for tumbleweeds
~
Published as: ‘The Reason for Leaving’, 2010/2011, Canadian Stories 13 (76).
© Jane Tims
nichepoetryandprose 
What a touching, evocative poem, Jane. And the pictures illustrate the feelings you described so well. I suspect most places are not abandoned easily, to uproot the family to move on to a more promising place to live, it must have been a difficult decision to make, and bittersweet to carry out.
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Barbara Rodgers
August 11, 2011 at 3:51 pm
Thanks for your comment. Fortunately our memories can return us to places we miss. Jane
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jane tims
August 14, 2011 at 8:37 pm