The house still leans where ivy climbs
and moss has claimed the window’s eye,
its breath a fog that does not lie,
forgetting all but softer times.
The floorboards speak in gentle cracks,
of barefoot ghosts in morning light,
a quiet child, a paper kite,
and laughter echoing through cracks.
The garden bends to weeds and rain,
but roses bloom where none remain,
a stubborn kind of joy, not pain,
just proof that beauty does not feign.
And though we pass, we do not fall:
we stitch ourselves into the wall,
in chipped paint, names that time recalls,
still listening, beyond it all.