Disappearing act, David Copperfield not required

Ghost Cabin

On a road lined with houses and trailers,

farms and businesses,

sits a single-room log cabin;

roughhewn and dating

most probably

to Daniel Boone—

Not the TV series but the one

what “kilt a bar.”

Who might have discovered the land

            on which the cabin sits?

After travelling down the Licking River,

            and then overland, following

                   valleys and Raven Creek

                        they stopped Here—
But why here?

And who stopped?

Before there were roads or houses—

much less trailers—

this cabin was.

When the surrounding forest

            was still old growth

                    and simply clearing the ground to erect

                                     any cabin would have been a long

                                                       and perhaps deadly task—

this cabin

came into being.

When was it built…

before the Commonwealth?

Who might have visited its owners?

Was it a slave cabin?

Was it a stop on the

Underground Railroad?

Did it harbor soldiers during the Civil War?

Was it a barn, a haven, or a home

during later decades?

What is its history?

What has been its life?

How many people lived here, in space

            not much more than 10 feet square—

                    often the size of a modern

                             bathroom?

Today the cabin’s nearest neighbor

            (just down the hill a bit)

is a garage—

fixing cars and trucks—

all and sundry

quite unimaginable to

those who constructed

the cabin in dense woods.

The cabin has an “addition”

that doubles its original size.

Still, today the cabin is too small to be used as

anything more than a weekend retreat

for Lexington hunters—

as a deer hung nearby

(and license plates)

this past fall attested.

Yet, at night

from my house

across the road and up a hill

when I look toward it down the firebreak

The tiny cabin vanishes—

a ghost of bygone days and dreams
        and possibilities.