On sleepless nights,
I fly to our family farm,
half a century gone by in time,
where first memories were formed.
Reaching out, I pick up the gossamer thread,
gently reeling those days back to me.
 
It is morning; light streams
through the window in the second story 
bedroom. I am alone and reach out my hand
between crib slats to the beams before calling out.
 
I am three, four, five, playing in gigantic
lilacs, creating make-believe rooms
within, for a home of my own,
our cow dog Nicky at my side.
 
I collect eggs from the hen house for breakfast,
play with the cats who live in the barn,
trail after my father as he stacks hay,
milks the cows and takes them to pasture.
 
My parents and I walk the path
through the woods to the lake,
past my mother's garden, where the corn
grows tall and I help her pick carrots and beans.
 
I am six, seven, eight. The wooden door to the porch
slams thwack as I run through to the kitchen;
Mother bakes bread or pies,
on harvest days cooks for a crew,
or she sits at the table setting wet hair in curlers.
 
I hunt four-leaf clovers and watch as
grasshoppers bound from blade to blade
in front of the old ice house. The dark,
treasure-filled attic calls to me, off limits
but I long to see the history hidden there.
 
My father and I are alone in an old rowboat;
I trail my hand through the water
as we glide by lily pads and cattails,
scenes I long to return to.
 
Burned down three decades past,
this farmhouse, the first place
to make its mark on me,
exists only in sleeping and waking dreams.

© by Carolyn Casas.
Used with the author's permission.