Coming Upon an Old House

Here's a poem I wrote years ago about the house of my grandparents in Livermore, California. 

Coming Upon an Old House

by Angela Knight

We Drive out in the country, 

On our way to Grandma's.

Coming upon an old house,

That's hot and dry in the summer; cold and cozy in the winter.

Familiar thoughts enter my mind.

Feeding the cows and playing in the mill, 

or sitting on the bedroom window sill.

I think of that old house, and what it could tell;

how the old linoleum cracked, or how the upstairs had its musty smell.

The golden fields rimmed with barbed-wire fences 

opened my mind and cleared my senses.

They invited me in, never pushed me away,

 I eagerly accepted and came everyday.

We watched the dogs run in and out of the swaying eucalyptus trees, 

while talking around the kitchen table and feeling the breeze.

Hearing the call of birds just before sunset, 

and the blare of the television while the table is set.

Many years I have spent getting to know this place, 

the story of this ranch must be written upon my face.

Never will I forget the times I had, 

they will forever be memories of good, not bad.