Abandoned Farmhouse

By Ted Kooser

Words Underlined: broken dishes, God-fearing, lilacs, tractor tire, lonely, sealed jars

Woman Walking

Kathy Heim

A woman walks alone following dry, cracked,

Tire tracks left to settle in a barren field

She Looks for a past blown away with the wind, 

Wondering where her life went twisty

And when it turned to pieces like

Broken dishes heaped in a pile, 

each a fragment of her.  

Some jagged, stripped of soft edges, 

Lonely, dangerous, and warning.  

No one picks these ones,

They come with a warning. 

Leave me alone they shout.  

But the rounded ones, they

Beg to be held, caressed, wanted.

Like lilacs, beautiful, fragrant, delicate, 

Displayed in unsealed jars to be admired, desired.  

The woman heads home praying to God

For a path ahead to put herself back together

Before returning home.