Overhead, a swinging lamp
casts shadows amidst the damp
of a derelict house that still stands
against time’s winds and sands:
A testament to an ingenious man
and the workings of his rough-hewn hands.
On quiet nights, it still lights the way
to fallow field and vine-choked hay.
Tasking their master to return and reap,
wind-blown stalks bend and weep.
an abandoned house
sits with boarded windows
as if its inhabitants might return
and sweep away the dust
Here is something I learned from my mother:
Non-acceptable ways of venting anxiety include
Sleeping
Eating
Anger
&
Complaining to friends
But cleaning the house puts not only your home in order
It gives you time to put yourself in order
A bed of dandelions
Has grown
By the back gate
The vines trail over the trellis of the great gabled house
On the hill in the woods, the wind churns leaves
It scatters pieces like a child strewing sand
The neighborhood teenagers hurl stones
Crack windows
During drunken games and overnight naps
Locals turn their gaze away from the eyesore
Of yellow portico growing yellower
But in the eaves, a family of sparrows makes its nest
And a fox dens indoors on a sagging velvet armchair
Mice in the pantry drag in acorns and mushrooms
And the bat in the chimney delights in soot and dark;
Even the fire-less hearth is still a hearth
And a home, a home, for the otherwise homeless
Watching the birds dart here and there for a bit of tuft or twig, makes me lonesome to find my own home, a place of belonging. How easy it is for animals to court and make a nest. But then again, they have to remake their house every year. They must woo every year. Not even the lesser beasts have it easy.
RED GLADIOLA 