The Old House

There she stood

 Her threadbare back braced against the winds escaping from the mountains

 Her sagging face greeting each day’s genesis

 Her shingles draped over her like a moth-eaten hat

 Her sidings stained brown from years of exposure, like a painter’s smock

There she stood

 Desolate on the lone rise of the tabletop landscape

 A scruffy hedge of caragana surrounding her like a sloughed off boa

There she stood, but once…

Once her womb bulged as her children gathered

  Around a tree in better times (“Look, a Douglas Fir from BC!”)

  Or a gamely decorated sprig of caragana

    In the years when the winds howled

    The empty clouds, deceptively black and heavy, dashed hopes

    And the dust seeped gritty and gray into every corner

     With gifts of rag dolls and cut out pictures from the Eaton’s catalogue

There she stood, but once…

 Once, they gathered within her

   To welcome the thrice sprinkled

    “In the name of the Father…”

   To support the newly united

    “Do you take this man…”

   To bid adieu to the fallen

    “The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away…”

There she stood

 Providing shelter from the prairie’s incessant breathings

 Offering warmth around the crowded yet barren kitchen table

 Supplying the soil in which germinated the seeds

 Of family, faith, hope, generosity

There she stood

 Welcoming all

   Those around whom she spread her arms in their youth

   Their children and their children’s children

    And the curious

There she stood until…

 Until he came with bulldozer and gas

   Crumpled her sides, scrunched her together like a wadded up piece of foolscap

    Anointed her, and lit her afire

But she still stands

 In the musings of the mind

  In the stirrings of the soul

   A memory, an inspiration