This Old House

Let me tell you a story
of how a friend became an enemy
in a very short time

But first let me shift my weight for--
There are anniversaries to be--
mourned
present days to be--
celebrated

She is growing on me.
Today I spent on my knees
scrubbing her feet
She's lived my 27 years
plus 72.Next year there will be
100 parties
rain or shine,
in solo or community,
to commenmorate her
century.

Many have come, many have
gone
I am but a breath of her life
Many have come, many have
gone

She has learned to hold no grudges.
And she knows she's in love
when she desires to watch you
grow old. John claims that she
likes me and that all who come
between her walls utter,
"Cozy"

I felt her forgiveness before
the plee came to my lips
She's been around too long to hold grudges.
She knows
the housing of negativity within
her wooden chest-of-walls
only excels the bleeding process leading
to death.

I don't believe in speaking
negativity, hatred, discord
into matter. For
when I was a child I beleived
my stuffed animals would
come alive, and I believed the
tiger in the poster would step
down from her perched position
on my wall, all to near to my head
And who really wants to piss off
a tiger before falling into
vulnerable sleep?

She tells me I am weird
and I find this odd
"You're not like this?"
And here we are
I was going to write about this time last year but
I have found myself
varnishing the floor
with red wine instead.

Lord,
you have brought me so far
Mother,
there is no need
No,
no need to worry
I have been through the rivers,
I have been through
a sea
and I have come out the other side
resurrected like the calli lilies
And someday

I will write in my
mid-eighties like Florida Scott-Maxwell
"You need only claim the events of your life
to make yourself yours.
When you truly possess all you have been
and done...
You are fierce with reality."

And that in the Measure of My Days
will be
(816)

A Death blow is a Life blow to Some
Who till they died, did not alive become--
Who had they lived, had died but when
They died, Vitality begun -Emily Dickinson