I never knew an empty house before,
I never felt this way.
My memories and thoughts have fled.
have gone from me today.

I feel the world around me more,
still humming with its life.
But everything is made of words,
from our human joys to strife.  

Who will I say I am next month
without my house of words?
Anything I care to be,
Even flying with the birds.

I belong to the world.
I belong to the beauty,
To the struggle,
To the joy,
To the wrenching grief,
To the heron,
To the sparrow,
The dweller and
The homeless.
The earth and
The wasteland.
The builder and
Destroyer.
The loved and
Unwanted.
I belong to all of it and
It is mine. For now.

I¹m not sure how I came to be obsessed with Dorothy L. Sayers and her
beloved Peter Wimsey.  At any rate, I was determined to go on a pilgrimage
to England and walk in the places where she walked  and to see the place
where her ashes lay.  And  to ostensibly find a signed copy of one of her
books  every copy of which was beyond my economic horizons on my internet
searching.  So  I went to London  I saw her heroine, Harriet Vane¹s
Bloomsbury.  I went to Russell Square and stepped back into a time when
hotels smelled of potted meat and wet wool  and it was always raining.  I
saw    where Harriet and Peter set up housekeeping after their marriage.
Finally, I wnet to St. Anne¹s Church in Soho  DLS¹s final resting place
where she was warden for some 12 years before her deaeth in 1957.  It took
three trips to the small tower where her ashes lay under the concrete before
I could get inside and stand in that place, but I finally got there  What
is it that makes us feel connected when we stand where someone else is
buried?

And  wandering around London on our second day there  I stumbled into a
small book shop and, wonder of wonders, I asked if they had any Dorothy L.
Sayers¹ books and they said ³Are you her to look at her private library that
they had recently purchased at auction?¹  So  I now have three of DLS¹s own
books  and I have one signed and annotated in ink by her from her private
library.  I have the books sitting in my living room in a small house, in a
small town in Indiana.  But I have a part of something in my bookshelf  I
take it out periodically and ****** it  and feel like I can reawaken some
lost show in some other place and time.

It¹s Raining
Here in this place a forgotten past
The smells of damp wood, of mold, of dusty books, of rooms occupied for many
years;
Of wet wool
Of brewing all day long; of cooked cabbage and rolls and butter; of potted
meat;
The mustached old men close their umbrellas  they make sounds like talking
of something but nothing is said;

These rooms are not here any more -
It is a place of another time that I know but cannot have known.
Will it disappear the moment I step back outside into the Bloomsbury street?

SMELLS
WET WOOL
HEAT
BREWING TEA
YEAST AND WARM ROLLS
TINNED MEAT
DAMP WOOD
MOLD
OLD
RAIN

OLD MEN WITH MUSTACHES
AND UMBRELLAS,
SITTING IN CHAIRS
EMPYING DINING ROOM
GRAND STAIRCASE
FADING RED STARRED CARPET
HOTEL RUSSELL
BLOOMSBURY

She left with the leaves,
blown away by the October wind;
She left on a warm night with the full moon.

Days before, she stood at the door, silently, silhouetted against the bright sun;
   saying goodbye to the light, goodbye to the world.

What about the visits not made, the places not seen?
        - no matter;
No more winters to endure;
No more Novembers to wait through.

She left with October,  before the cold winds blew the world gray;
She left with the yellow leaves,  free to fly away.

I found a letter my mother wrote to my sister in her old cookbook;
”Lock the front door and go to bed in my bed – I will call you - Mom.”

If I could just go back for a moment to that time and that place­ - our small house with the gold painted walls -  my mom walking up the steps, coming home from work in her nurse¹s cap.

Just one more day, sitting at the dining room table, the open window at my back letting in the late summer heat, the early evening light, the droning of a lawn mower. The six of us at the crowded table, spread with the summer food - slices of tomato, baked beans, cottage cheese, iced tea in a ceramic jug.

Just one more night, out on the front curb, listening to the whispering adults on the front porches; lying back in the cool grass, watching the fireflies, waiting for something ominous to move in the night sky.

There was no time without my mother then - and it’s true - she will always be there.