Old Houses

 

Mary Ann Potter image

Old houses
speak in haunted whispers
of days when parents, cousins, friends
and gentlemen callers
filled the rooms
with bright and happy voices ...

.... all gone, now,
dreams abandoned,
like childhood dolls
in the attic.

The two old sisters who remain
were young women in this house once,
dressed in sprigged cotton,
full of dreams and whispered hopes
under the summer moon.
The young men came, then went away,
mothers, aunts, uncles departing in their turn,
the two spinsters
living out their days together
in this shabby, downturning house,
a century rolling by
one day at a time
of waking, cooking, dishes, bed.

Every evening for years,
the sisters have walked,
slowly, with their canes,
along this country path.
Last time we passed, only one was left,
as faded as the crumbling house behind her,
unsmiling, eyes dim,
watching her days slowly
winding down.

Soon the house will be empty
as it has not been since 1915.
Then, how those echoes will whisper
like disappointed ghosts
through all the dusty, empty rooms.

A tale of two sisters, who lived for almost a century out Beaver Creek in Port Alberni. On evening drives, we would see them, standing by the gate watching us pass. Last time, there was only one sister standing at the gate. I can see her face now.

This is where Shay's Word List took me this week.