The Family Home

I walk slowly through the house by night -

Our museum of esoteric memories.

The collection of rooms that hold our lives

In framed pictures and ancestors' books.

Everyone is sleeping,

Lulled by the soft berceuses of night.

And I run my hand against the walls -

Tracing alabaster that holds a mirror

That has reflected us as we were and weren't,

Through all these passing years.

The house is silent and vibrates

With a history told in blood.

Echoes of laughter,

Of tears and hate --

Lazy conversations,

All swallowed by time.

A stranger could not walk

Across this terracotta,

And feel consumed by the

Resonance of our history.

I will forget how it feels -

To pass through my house

In the early morning,

While my parents,

Only middle aged

Sleep alive and breathing,

Warm in their bed.

And my brother

Only twenty-one,

Returned home camping,

Sleeping upstairs,

Dreaming, dreaming.

Our futures lie ahead of us,

Our paths will be diverged -

And our hearts will no longer belong

To this home of ours one day.

In this house of our history,

This house from where we grew.