THIS OLD HOUSE

a river
of people
flow through this house

sharing time
on this earth
with sunlight and shadow

a parrot
a cat
a dog

people come
people gone
first many then none

the wall paper
goes from hideous
("This will have to go!")

to nicer
every now and then
and then again

hideous as
once
was

strip away wallpaper
to find children's heights
and ages in pencil

small Paul
shoots up above
an envious elder brother

who always
begrudges him
his new found height

a do-it-yourselfer
becomes at once
an emotional archeologist

here a wall is
broken through
one room becomes two

the house leaves
a trail of owners
then landlord after landlord

my own good self
reflected in
the past of others

the ghost of who
they have been
walking from decade to decade

a couple from 1963
newly arrived
newly married

after a lifetime
(so it seems)of living
in sin

he half Irish
she ever so English
with a touch of Dutch

there now
a spinster
dying alone in a sunset

a cross section
of humans
all kinds

the house
a kaleidoscope
of times

people
a living
palimpsest  

the house
contains them all
Time in full flood

a ghost
walks through a wall
gets stuck

between 1907
and 1967
grandfather clock bongs

and bongs again
Time is so
fragile a thing

I too( I see )
will leaves this house
become as one

with the many who
flow through
this place

this place now
a place no more
in some future

that will
not contain
(strangely)me

humans
the flotsam and jetsam
of Time