A Home of Hundreds

This poem is dedicated to my father who passed away last year.

There it stands, adjacent to the sun-wet road with a gasoline rainbow down the middle. There it stands with a Goddish glow and a great big brick wall on either side of the door, a home of hundreds. This house; a house of humour at the dinner table and summer days of sprinklers and bathing suits in the backyard and hallways like a hedge-maze. Old uniforms clutter the closet and split rent with tattered flags bundled up like dirty dishtowels. A chandelier hangs by an unbreakable strand; dust covers the dirt in the garden, the dishes in the kitchen, the doilies in the hutch.

 

This is a history house. It stood silent for four years, turn of the century, victory bonds in the drawer. It stood by while serenaded by sirens in the streets and doo-op songs on the record player. Picket fence painted red, McCarthy called it a commie. Two bad neighbours fought next door, never making a scene.

 

This house is silent. Dust lingers, the chandelier about to snap and fall. Yet there he stands, elusive through the windows, alone understatement of the century. A hero. A villain. Four children and a widower. When he walks through the dining room he sees humour at the dinner table. His hedge maze hallways take him to the summer sprinklers in the backyard, rusty and dull. He stands tall, a microcosm of the past. He is a century.

 

There he stands, next to the house adjacent to the sun-wet road with a gasoline rainbow down the middle. 

Reviews

[Tempeste Mavys]

I like this😄 The description is good, and the bookend fit in really nice. Keep it up!