My Great Grandma Asta Ruby Brown passed away at the age of 99, just a couple months short of turning 100. She was a brilliant writer, and I just got to borrow three books full of her poems yesterday from my mom. Even in her 90s she would write us hand written letters on our birthdays, in perfect cursive script, and you could really hear her youthful spirit in those letters, as her voice had grown shaky and slower with age. I'm currently digitizing all of her work, and intend to publish them on a website once they're finished. For now I will share my favorite poem of the ones I've been able to read through so far.
The Old Farm
The old buildings are sagging and swaying tonight
And ghosts are abroad in the pale gold moonlight
The soft feet of destruction are sure but so slow
The farmhouse and the barn in their painful death throe
Still remain but are willing and sighing to go
The outside snowball trees can but partly obscure
The poor broken-down home that once held such allure
Tho' the view 'cross the water is just as before
With the lights from the town flickering as of yore
And the air--the clean air penetrating each pore
A lone bird on the tree in a song of lament
Seems to grieve over how all the past glories went
While the pink hawthorns bloom in memoriam tonight
With the snowballs so round and so purely white
Oh! The ghosts are abroad in the pale gold moonlight
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