CAN'T GO HOME

CAN’T GO HOME

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I can’t go home because

It isn’t as it was…

“My” house is still there

But it’s been used to care

For folks adjusting to the “outside” buzz.

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I’ve turned State Hospital Blue,

Where my Dad worked for years and Mom too…

Where years of neglect

Many buildings have wrecked,

Where a wrecking ball may punch them through.

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Field Days were many years past,

I don’t remember when the last

Patient carnival was

But I remember because

I saw a real bird carver’s last.

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Our once self-sufficient “town”

Once vacated tends to run down…

The Beauty Shop no more

Resounds like a store,

The patients must go into town.

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Most patient-filled buildings in ruins,

Some are kept up for other doings…

Campus fire and police

Still keep up their beats,

With a smaller circle of crewing.

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Patients who stay are sicker,

Others in half-way homes quicker…

The institution

Made resolution

To not keep so many to dicker.

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I could go on with much more,

The bakery, laundry and store…

The coal-fired steam plant

Pumps water but can’t

Be used for heating anymore.

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Once home, where I grew up, exchanged

Its purpose for a world rearranged…

What went on before

No longer will soar,

I may visit, but it’s not home e’er again.

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—Jonathan Caswell

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