It is the summer of the third year 

of The War Between the States.

And a white clapboard house sits on a wide flat hill,

With a budding oak tree firmly rooted nearby.

The hilltop overlooks the Gwynns Falls,

Just a bit out of range, 

for a heavy artillery shot from the Baltimore harbor.

Strategically situated a half mile away from the house,

Sits a large camp of rear-guard soldiers,

‘Tween a federal arsenal and the Jamison Gunpowder Mill.

A military aide-de-camp hurriedly gallops his 

frothing horse along a well worn dirt trail,

Passing the two-story, pale-colored structure.

He carrys an important message concerning 

enemy troops forming for battle,

just north across the Mason-Dixon

boundary line of the Old Line State.

She with the Divided Loyalties,

Brother Against Brother.

Soon blue-coated troops would be marching

northwestward up the Old Liberty Road.

It is Christmas Eve, 1900, and a tired, old veteran,

Of the Mexican, Civil, and Indian Wars,

Sits down peacefully on the railroad tracks,

Just a few minutes by horse 

from his white clapboard house.

Benjamin F. Childs, a carpenter, 

waited to end his life of 71 years.

Now, a century and twenty later,

another septuagenarian man,

reflects on his youthful time spent in that old house,

and all that has passed in between.

How as a young boy, 

With summer second floor windows wide open,

he recalls falling asleep to

the rolling cadence of railway cars,

softly thumping in the night,

along those same tracks where Ben gave it all up.

He remembers the great-grandson of General Meade,

The supreme Union commander at the Battle of Gettysburg,

Visiting his grandmother’s partner,

Telling tall tales in the pipe-smoke filled air 

of the northeast wing of the old home.

Then there was the Sunday morning horror,

of a boy age five being awakened 

by a sweeping fire enveloping 

the entire Emroy Dog Kennels,

owned and operated by the house patriarch.

The stiff-charred remains and the smoky aftermath 

long lingers in the mind as it did for days

following the inferno.

But ..., there was the card playing with childhood friends,

under the ample shade of the now huge-trunked 

oak tree during the hot and humid summer season.

The young lad witnessed his older brother hug the

Wide girth of that giant oak and shimmy on up to 

the nearest ten foot high branch. 

All this, while listening to burgeoning rock&roll music 

on portable, battery operated, transistor radios,

via the help of post-WWII technology.

And, just watching and identifying 

the colorful, two-toned and finned 1950’s 

automobiles traveling on the now paved, dirt trail 

once galloped upon by soldiers of the 1860’s.

And then there were those surreptitious, summery 

midnight swims with cohorts in the outdoor community pool,

located on the grounds of the once Civil War gunpowder mill.

For the Aware,

Everything is connected,

Yes, Everything,

by people, place, and through time.

Oh, only if this old house could tell tales,

What a story it would tell.

_____________________________________________________________________________

* This poem was published in Maryland Bards Poetry Review 2022 *

D W Orr
Environmentalist, Weimaraner/Dachshund Companion, Photographer, and Poet-Provocateur
Harford County, Maryland,
Here, where it all began, 251 years ago, in the USA

July 16, 2020

Only If This House Could Talk
“The Old House on the Hill”, by D. W. Orr Photo & Poetry
Two Civil War Widows
“Two Civil War Widows”, by D. W. Orr Photo & Poetry