The Home Place, 1949
by Vaughn Neeld

We arrived at our new home
where our house sat on cement blocks
on the scraped-raw Oklahoma-red dirt.

The trees out back had been uprooted,
their withering leaves hanging limp and desiccated
in woodpiles waiting to be burned.

The home-hill looked scalped and bleak–
not a most welcoming sight,
but, still, it was our first real home,

and after we crossed the creek,
rode up the hill, and surveyed the scene,
we found ourselves welcomed by
acres of wildflower-dotted meadows.