PROMPT 25 - THE EFFORT

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YESTERYEAR


that old farmhouse
you see
on route 2 box 586
where we all grew up
hard to believe
papa
built it himself
from the ground
but he chopped down
pine trees from the nearby
woods one cold winter season
before any of us was even
born
his huge hands covered
with frost from the storm of
'08
laid out the foundation
for our lives slab by slab by
slab and mama helped
though in a family way      
fixing his food
nursing his tired bones
hanging wash clothes out back
to dry watching
it all happen
from the kitchen window of
a raggedy one-room shack where
she peeped lovingly from behind
her patchwork lace curtain at
the man who would one day
become our grandfather