A stone’s throw from Rendezvous Road
a cabin crouches into itself,
walls rolled in and ridgepole crushed.
But dust beneath the roof is dry—
most of the painstaken shakes remain
and upon them march endless ranks
of nails, like iron-capped cadets.
Some stand taller than their mates—
but not a one is still tamped flush.
Each passing seasonal exchange—
of freeze and thaw; freeze, and thaw—
has prised that martial infantry
a fraction more from foxed holes
until all verge upon collapse.
Which early settler drove them home?
Prospector Henry Jackson Rizeor?
His son-in-law, Harmon Lewis?
The land worked them, too, slowly out.
All they left was names on maps—
holes that tell where nails one stood.