House and Home

 There is a place one cannot describe in mere words
And that is home.
Forty-nine years ago we found a sadly barren lot
Less than two acres
Two twenty somes with starry eyes and empty pockets
We imagined a chalet of wood and glass atop a shale ledge
A few wild cherry trees and baby cedars strewn here and there
No shade to shield us as we dug footings
The pieces of the place we would inhabit these many years of married life
Arrived upon a flatbed truck
It rose, a shell constructed by a master builder and one man who rode a Harley
The roof was laid, our work began
With staple gun I lined the rooms with silver insulation
My mate began and conquered every challenge
With books lent from Bloomfield library
And experience gained from his father
Married in May of seventy-one, saving for a year
And then the pain and joy of bringing dream to life
With help of family and friends
Sustained by food cooked on Aunt Mary’s Coleman stove
And ice cream cones in summer
Transported by our Willies’s jeep along with shovels, tools. and will
Clad in old clothes and young ideas
Scraping up each payment to the bank
Our wages gladly given: his for food and rent, mine for materials
In the fall of seventy-three we moved
Carrying with us a son; in the oven as my mom would say
And four years later a daughter.
We became a family, the house a home.
The years flew by and on this first day of March
As the sun rises, I am drawn to bring my coffee on the southern deck
And once again relive in the present that marvel experienced from the first
The spring coolness, the clean country air
The sun, the sounds of distant birds greeting morning
Being home.