Building A House

A Poem by C. James Snyder

This is the feature poem off my debut spoken word/poetry album "Nothing Really". Available for free at https://becomer.bandcamp.com/releases and on all major streaming platforms (Spotify, iTnunes)

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It all starts with a simple realization

Someone decides that they are done walking and so they sit down

It is comfortable there

Perhaps it is the light dancing through the branches

Warming the earth at their toes

Or perhaps it is the purple mountains in the distance

And how it makes them feel held by something larger

But then they realize that there are storms

Or that the green blooms and wildflowers

Are only passing gifts

And, like the calls of summer birds in the morning

They grow distant with the sun over time

So they take some stone and some wood

And they build something above their bodies

But they are careful to leave open a small square

So that they remember why they stopped

At this very same place at that very first time

And they call this place a house

Things go well for a while

There are holes to patch and fields to sow

But then they realize, there are storms within ourselves, too

These storms are a fuzzy grayness that

Fill in the edges of the house at dawn and dusk

So instead of walking further into the forest

They walk to another house close-by

And ask if the person that they have smiled at

Every chance they had would like to come out

One person is enthralled by the slender curving arms of the other

The other person lights up at the way the other says “mouse”

Pronounced like there is a W hiding in the spelling of the word

And they both decide that these two things are

Something that they cannot live without

Because every big thing is really made up from a lot small things

Just like a house

So they stand in a patch of violet wildflowers on a warm day

And people who live in their houses join them

And people who used to live in their houses

Whom they have not seen in many days join them

And one asks a question and the other agrees

And they do not return to their houses alone

Instead they both go to one house and call it a home

They live like this for what seems like

The first part of forever

But they manage to keep track with small gifts

Like new plates when the old ones became scratched

New pants when the old knees wore thin from working

And a single bunch of violet wildflowers from the same

Patch that still grows in their minds every morning

And they make love before the sun rises

And in the woods on top of sweet grass bristling

And in the current beneath the waterfall

And then they are amazed at a sudden new life

One that was put together by their lives

And so the mountains look smaller to them

When their look at their new life

But to the new life being held

Their lives will be larger than any range seen again

But one day, just like they did so long ago, their new life will leave their home

And they, now older, will continue on as they did before

Yet the winters will grow colder, the mornings earlier

And their memories shorter

But before either of them leaves for good

The story ends with a simple realization

Every little thing that built their home

Remains a part of them for the last part of forever.

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© 2018 C. James Snyder

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Coyote Poetry

I agree my friend.
"The story ends with a simple realization
Every little thing that built their home
Remains a part of them for the last part of forever."
A house is our safe place where memories are stored. I enjoyed the complete poem and thank you for sharing the amazing poetry.
Coyote