Inkwell 2018-2019

Heritage Park by Erin Hansbrough

You know those old farm houses? The ones out on Meadowbrook Road behind the briar bushes and mulberry trees? There’re a couple buildings that have tumbled to the ground, but I’ve found some that still stand there in the waving grass. They’ve lasted for who knows how long and the wood planks are rotting, but something about the cracked concrete and shattered windows makes it beautiful in a woodsy, haunting sort of way. When it’s morning or the middle of the day, the sun shines on the little lake there and slants in through the holes in the sheet metal ceilings.I like to stand in the center of the dusty floors and look at the paintings on the walls. There’s one with a mermaid and another that says ‘find true love.’ I didn’t find it there in the summer park with the rusting cars,the soaring, skylight silos, the eroded creek. I didn’t find it in the ancient trees or the tiny hidden graveyard with the weathered marble stones carved with maple leaves,but I did find something close to home there beneath the pines and the strange circle of stones. I felt the ghosts of a long ago time in those fields; they weren’t lost or sad; they were just peaceful.

Tayzon Nicholson

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