An old house sits in the deep-wood heart
of the ancient forest-fen.
It's crumbling stones fall farther 'eryday into
the appointed state of sad decay.
But why?! For does not the hope of man rest
upon 'ery brick atop another, on 'ery cottage,
'ery palace, 'ery shack in misty glen?
For these are the bricks of civilization, my dearest
heart.
So shore up the trembling walls, prop up the
rotting rafters! For do we not, in this one act,
prop up our tradition, our civilization, nay
very lives of the People?
But no. For see the climbing vines, creeping insidiously,
through the mossy stone wall? See the mildew on the rafter
beams, the fungi on the hearth?
We all go to the ground, whether man or beast, or stick
or stone. Whether tree or shrub or mistletoe, we all go
back to the ground.
I am old, my sweet, and I fear the day's not far,
when my lids slide closed,(or don't, who knows?)
and I'm walking Deaths cold halls.
I beg you Rose, my sweetest flower, don't put
me in the stone. Just bury me the old fashioned
way, in dirt and rotting leaves.
For I couldn't bear, to be buried there, in the cold
And crumbling stone.
"From dust I came, and to dust I shall go, at the end of things,
or at least, at the end of me."
This is an old poem. It is, I think, at least five years old, forgotten in a chest of old papers. I think it is time it was brought to the light.