Nothing Lasts Forever they say, but sometimes I wish it would
The house where I was born still stands having good bones,
it’s now almost a hundred
*
But like me its shell is not what it used to be
Worn and run down it still sits stately in the weeds
Time has taken its toll as new residents came and went
*
When I look in the mirror, I think to myself
“He had good bones but look at him now!”
“What happened to all that hair… too much Brylcream, I guess!”
*
I remember living in that house when I was a child
I would love to walk through it once more with my brothers
visiting each room sharing indelible memories.
*
I can see my mother rolling out pie dough on the table
Crawling up on the chair, I watched intently snitching a piece to taste
Can’t you smell it baking with sweet apple juice oozing out?
*
There is my father sitting in the big chair working on his sermon
The plywood board he made that lays across the wide arms
It had a Cardinal applique on one corner and a Bluejay on the other
*
The stairs were steep with a strong banister I slid down
Upstairs, my mom sat in the rocker reading books to us before bed
Gathering around in our pjs we listened intently
Epilogue:
Sadly, this is meaningless to my children and grandchildren
I wish I could give them a tour telling of each special memory
But without the memories, for them it would only be a kind gesture
*
But nothing lasts forever and neither will my vivid memories
They are just ghosts that haunt me from time to time but soon gone
I heard it said that when a person dies, a library of information dies with them
*
It does make me sad to think how life moves on
bringing its joys and sorrows fresh and new to each generation
but soon they too will be lost with the coming of then next
*
Nothing in this life lasts forever
*
Photos: Dwight L. Roth
Today at d’Verse, Sanaa introduced us to Maggie Smith’s conversational style of poetry. She shared some of her poems with us and asked us to write one of our own. My reference to Good Bones is a nod to her poem of that title.
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Roth Poetry 