Lost Houses

There are houses out there somewhere.                                                                                  They    are out there, those houses.

We knew them once but we lost them.                                                                                         We   lived in them once, but they lost us.                                                                                       All these years later, they are still out there.

We moved on and never came back.                                                                                     They        are   back there somewhere, lost in time.                                                                           We can’t get back there.

We tried to stand still, but time and the houses moved on,                                                        Slid  out from under us and moved on.                                                                                     They   are out there somewhere, lost in possibility.                                                                    They are gone. We can’t catch them.

They stand out there alone, winter grass tall around them.                                                There   used to be roads to them, but the roads have moved on.                                             The roads have gone away, faded to tracks in tall winter grass.

It is day where they were, but day moved on                                                                                 Or    they moved on and left day behind.                                                                                 Houses fade in the late light.                                                                                                        Night fades to black, winter fades to white.                                                                         Memory fades to lost.

They stand alone now, out there somewhere, ruined.                                                            Roofs fade with the light, grow thin and leak.                                                                        Plaster falls to floor, roof falls to attic, attic to parlor, parlor to cellar.                               Fading houses fall, windows break, linoleum curls.                                                                  Lost houses fade as memory fades.

The trees are there, too, those trees, winter grass tall around them.                             Summer has moved on and summer leaves and wind that rustles the leaves.                    Bare trees creep up the winter sky,

Mold creeps up damp walls in empty houses.                                                                          Trees creep up the last orange dusk in the west.                                                                       They creep up the sky to the moon. Trees craze the moon’s pristine face.                            The crazed moon wanes, night by night as time slides.

The houses have burned, some of them, maybe.                                                                      Their charred skeletons obtrude between us and the waning moon.                                     Day fades to night, moon wanes to gone.

They are still out there somewhere, those houses.                                                                      We lived in them once before time moved on.                                                                             We must move on until we find those houses.                                                                             We must find them somehow, before light fails.                                                                             We won’t find them as they were. They will never be as they were.                                Perhaps they never were.

We must find those houses, their lost possibilities.                                                            Perhaps we can rest there, however briefly, before we move on.

This entry was posted in Poems. Bookmark the permalink.