The Trailer Park

It was a rundown trailer park
across the railroad tracks.
He lived beneath a willow tree,
just several houses back.

Those trains passed by there all the time.
They were a common sight.
He never did get used to them.
They woke him up each night.

The man lived there all by himself,
his only friend a cat.
He didn’t see the neighbors much
and he was fine with that.

The cat would come at suppertime.
He didn’t know its name.
Its ears had notches cut in them
and it was partly lame.

They had a lot in common, though,
this lone man and the cat.
So they would sit upon the steps
and they would have a chat.

He didn’t miss the outside world;
he was content to hide.
He gave up on a normal life
the day his wife had died.

But even in that little house
he kept things neat and clean.
His army training taught him well.
He managed to stay lean.

He didn’t have to work at all;
his daily needs were few.
He had some savings stashed away,
enough to get him through.

He didn’t have to travel much.
He had no one to see.
That was a blessing and a curse,
as it turned out to be.

For he still had to fill the time
of each and every day.
He needed something he could do
to keep the ghosts at bay.

And so he took up macramé.
Now you may think that strange.
But it was what he needed most -
a different life, a change.

So now there’s color in his house
with hangings everywhere.
Nobody sees them but the man,
nobody else is there.

He talked about them to the cat
when they sat down to chat.
And since the cat agreed with him,
he gave his head a pat.

And now you’ll see them all around,
his macramé designs.
They’re hanging in the trailer park
from lampposts and from signs.

The local paper heard of this,
put photos on display.
That trailer park is all dressed up;
it is no longer gray.

The neighbors loved the way things looked.
There was a sense of pride.
Soon other artists showed their crafts,
with talents far and wide.

That trailer park has now transformed.
It is a place to see
and people come to visit it,
this artists’ colony.

The man sits with the nameless cat
to watch the trains pass by,
as neighbors in the trailer park
walk past and wave a Hi.