House

I walked and saw a house today

Once wreathed in gardens fair

That time and trial and long neglect

Left seized by waste and wear

She spoke to me as I passed by

Of youth and brawn and pow’r

By which she once did skyward fly

Straight up just like a tow’r

Alas, the one who placed the beams

Did move on by and by

To build for others hopes and dreams

Which clambered to the sky

In time another came to her

With visions bright and bold

And on her rafters laid his claim

With pockets full of gold

Yet as the years sped on and on

The man did drift away

Enticed by wealth’s dread siren call

His lust he could not stay

The one that he had left behind

She tried to make content

With patterned walls and crystal glass

Bought with the gold he sent

Alas, the lie was not enough

The dumb walls could not speak

The lavish charm of rooms and halls

More noisome week by week

Then after this so many came

She could not name them all

They broke and battered every door

Left holes in every wall

At last a man did enter in

And with skill did repair

Her splintered floors and crooked steps

With tenderness and care

But in the dark hours of the night

Her hopes he would upend

See, for another’s rooms he pined

He left her in the end

Ere long a man of God arrived

With words to soothe the soul

He built her up with love again

His strong hands made her whole

But then one day the man of God

To her did not return

A senseless tragedy, they said

How quickly fate doth turn

At length with weary beam and board

She bowed her shingled head

She boarded windows, locked her doors

She left her gardens dead

Her wooden heart she shut up tight

Her rooms lie cold and bare

The only sound she hears within—

The whisp’ring of the air

I walked and saw no house today

By sledge and saw she fell

The rubble where her gardens laid

No story did it tell