House

House

It is just an old house.

It sits

West of Farm Road 400

Just South of Plainview

Near the abandoned 400 Gin.

Not one flake of paint remains

On the warped, weathered, wooden structure.

There is not one straight line.

Every board yields to the stress on the structure.

The roof has a few shingles left.

Although the impression is of a structure

Completely ready to fail,

It has stood and withstood

The raging West Texas winds

For generations.

Failed dreams have a way of hanging on

Over time both good and bad.

This simple structure, unused for generations

Reminds me of other structures I have seen.

There is the courthouse building

Sitting alone in the ranch setting

Down a dirt driveway about a quarter of a mile

South of the road near Aspermont.

-I understand there was an election resulting from

A conflict in the community and the county seat was

Moved to another nearby town.-

But evidence of the failed dream lives on.

There is the large industrial structure built

Perhaps in the '30s.

It lies North of the road east of Lockney.

I do not know its original intent

Except to house a business venture of some kind.

I am told the town moved its limits

To tax the property

And the company

Abandoned the property rather than pay the taxes.

The evidence of the failed dream

Both for the company and the town.

There was for years a small building,

Made of large stones, south of Floydada.

Only recently did it disappear.

Only the memory of the evidence of the dream remains.

West of O'Donnell is the remnant of an old mine,

Sulphur I am told.

The wells are still there,

And the sediment pits.

The dream is long gone.

These are local images of lost dreams.

History is replete with them.

The fall of Rome,

The Rouge Plant in Detroit,

The Exxon Valdese oil spill

The BP oil spill in the Gulf.

The long line of destruction leaving Kuwait.

The failed bar exam.

There is a framed picture of a wedding,

She in her wedding dress,

He in his tuxedo.

The picture is in a box

In the far side of the attic.

He valued his job.

She her independence.

The dream is broken

But remnants remain.

We are a broken people

With broken dreams

Broken by our own self interest.

And that of others.

We are a finite people

With finite power,

Finite knowledge,

And finite presence.

Yet we are called on to make

decisions requiring near infinite insight.

Such decisions we are called on to make require

More than we have!

What then shall we do?

“Press on to the high calling of Christ!!!”

Do the loving, kind, gentle, graceful, forgiving, thing

With patience, and self control.

And depend on Christ for the outcome.

Dreams then turn to hope

Secured by Christ,

And accessed by faith.

“I go to prepare a place for you and

If I go to prepare a place for you,

I will come again

And receive you to myself

That where I am there you may be also.”

And the dream,

The future hope,

Becomes present reality!

Billy R. Masten

06/10/10