Even Prompter

Ancestral Home

Ancestral Home

Went home again a while back,
drove Google Earth down the streets,
looking for my grandma’s house
and thirty years in a British semi,
seeming more than that ago,
the old street names leading me
past Mike’s newsagent on the corner still,
up the hill and take a left,
new buildings crowd the manor’s field,
and space for cars where once were gardens,
down the row of thirties clones,
so many changed and spruced and grown,
then old 34 as I remember,
same old pebble dash, grey and weathered,
no porch or car park, just the hedge,
designed to be like all the rest,
it seems it’s found its claim to fame
in holding fast to the fading past,
eschewing dreams of renovation,
it holds true to family history,
foundations shaken by world war bombing,
children departing for foreign shores,
it recalls generations rooted
in tougher soil but longer lasting,
outdated values and clearer sight,
the nearest thing I have to speak of
ancestral home or treasured pile.


Line count: 27
Free verse
For Promptly Poetry, Week 12 2021
Prompt: Use this title for your poem: Ancestral Home. Write a poem inspired by that title.