In which Your Humble Blogger says, "This is getting old...."
"This House of the Old"
As meticulous as lace, as
Deliberate as the human
Body and its increasingly
Humble bones, that's how the stacks of
Memories look in the closet.
The dust weighs on all those boxes
The same way it weighs down shoulders.
Outside, ice hardens itself on
The sidewalk in deepening piles.
Everything: untouched, brittle lace.
And the people come here because
Our mother's will asked them to.
* * *
Not too much to say about this one, except that it's easy to think about getting old when the air is chilly and the year almost over. I'm not sure how I feel about the title; because titles are often the hardest part for me, I just went for a play on "This Old House," just to have a title there. I will confess, though, that I cheated and edited this a little while typing it out just now. It used to be snow hardening itself on the ground, not ice, but I think the patterns found in frozen puddles make a much more appropriate image here. And the third-to-last line originally read, "Everything as untouched as lace," but, especially with the mention of ice, I wanted to emphasize the frailty of things.
Whether it works or not, I don't know, but what a cold, cold poem! What was I saying the other day about aiming for warmth in my writing?
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