Staufferstadt

this street, now broad and inviting,

was not so long ago

a thread of mud and horse dung;

in the oldest houses

scattered through the town,

echoes of gundalow song and

the tread of doeskin soles on

hand-planed chestnut floorboards

billow in the slightest breeze

like heirloom lace:

the old ways

are with us still.

grandmother pans, grandfather plows,

hand-stitched cowhide bibles,

legacy quilts and garden-hoed potsherds,

blue mason jars and sere sepia portraits

anchor this town in place and time

beyond the reach of digital progress

(petit-point samplers,

recalling lives best described

in hand-me-down terms:

hardscrabble; gussy up; make do)—

innovations come and go,

but vintage is our pulse

Rich Follett, April 2021