Breathing in

The sounds in the house

have changed over the years. 

Once you could hear the wind 

walk through the rooms

because there was so little in them.

It was furnished just with scent of lilacs.

And then there was a baby cry.

Come get me mama. 

And I did.

And another.

And it was a time of busy of tired 

and love like we had never knew.

These were years of long tables and family dinners.

Grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins

filling rooms and eating turkey.

Noisy days. 

Then there were birthday parties 

with hats and cakes and paper plates.

Year after year. A celebration of time going, going, gone.

Summers of ball games in the yard. 

Picking raspberries on the edge of the woods

between the innings.

Some years the biggest sounds I remember 

were slamming doors.

Even in this old house the walls can quiver.

Followed by I love you and sorry always.

Tears. Sorrow. Tenderness.

Home from university.

Bags by the door. The house is full.

Rooms full of people embarking.

Carloads pulling out of driveways

anointed with unspoken blessings as they did.

And now the house smells like lilacs again

as another summer welcomes us home.

It is the sound of a ballgame

on the television in the front room. 

I can hear the sound of my hook again.

Everything still.

People grew up here. 

I grew up here truth be told

though I was twenty four

when I first walked into this kitchen.

Life circles through it still.

Friends come to the door 

to drop something off.

Dinners are eaten in the front room

with the news on low.

We live here now just the two of us

breathing in the lilacs

and it is all good, every stage, 

rich and different.

I surrender to them all.