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Thursday, October 14, 2010

THE HOUSE THAT STOOD HERE.




The house that stood here
was big and white, and nearly a century old.
It had a  big kitchen, a walk-through bathroom,
And a small cold pantry where we kept the feral kittens.

There was an old barn beside it with a rotten floor,
And every night, except in winter,
Swallows flew in and out at twilight
Swooping and darting about, catching bugs.

There was an arbor with a grapevine
That we sat under in the summertime
And a lawn so big
It had to be cut in stages.

This is where we were living when I woke
My sister in the morning with a rocket ship's roar.
And this is where we were living when she
Married my friend from high school.

I forget how long we lived there.
Was it two years? Three?
Then we moved away from there
And thirty years later, the house is gone.

A housing development sits there now.
New houses with new memories.
But the houses don't make the memories.
It's the people inside them that do.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

beautiful..I could picture the inside from just your words. Thanks for sharing.

Nancy said...

Doesn't it feel strange to go back to a place where we once lived and find it gone, with a new building there? It makes me sad when that happens. That is a beautiful, touching post.

Judith Richards Shubert said...

Thank you for such a beautiful picture in words, Bill.zx