The Farmer Poem by Angela L. Burke

There is an old dirt driveway
That leads up through the woods
To an old, abandoned farmhouse
That for one hundred years, has stood.

The paint has long been worn off.
The house is overgrown,
With weeds and vines of ivy
That cling to wooden bones.

The porch is long and empty
With each step it loudly creaks
The roof is missing shingles
And when it rains, it leaks.

The windows are all broken.
The gate is falling down.
There's stories, it's a haunted house,
That's what they say, in town.

A farmer use to live here
With five children and a wife.
They say, he just went crazy
And took all of their lives.

They say, it was depression
That drove him to the edge.
He could no longer feed them,
Or pay for his farm, it's said.

He'd lost all his crops that season
From the flooding and the rain.
He felt like he had failed them
And he could not bare the shame.

He knew the bank was coming
To foreclose on his land.
His family would be put out.
He couldn't take a charity hand.

They found the children lying
In their beds where they had slept.
They were neatly laid upon it
With hands folded on their chests.

Some claim that he'd put poison
In the porridge that they ate.
That, he'd placed them neatly in their beds
Tucked in with blankets, nice and straight.

The mother, she was also,
Found in the same way.
She and her little children
Had all died on the same day.

The farmer, he had hung himself
Outside, in the barn.
Where he'd left a scribbled note
That said, ' I never ment them harm.'

'I loved them all with all my heart.
I tried so hard to keep
The farm alive for all of them,
But, now I only weep.'

'So I've sent them to a better place
Where they will never want.
But, because of sin, I'm guilty,
This farm, I'll stay and haunt.'

' The bank may hold the papers
To the deed of this old land,
But, whoever lives here after
Will be touched by unseen hands.'

They say, if you go near it
On the night of the full moon,
You'll come back a different person,
And you'll figure out, real soon,

That the farmhouse on the dirt road,
Holds a spirit you can't see.
But, you'll feel his choking presence
Because the farmer, never leaves.