The Lives I Have Known Potd

It has been ages since the laughter died, which was many suns ago, Soon swept away by fleeting time, like the brief giggle of a rainbow. My vacant halls now are silent, and the flower garden is overgrown, Effusing rich and cloying fragrance, lovely nature reclaiming its own. The tree boughs are overhanging, the bushes begging to be pruned, Like a piano that once made beautiful music, is begging to be tuned. The fruit trees so long neglected, has left fruit rotting on the ground, Like the moonlit nights of June, when distant glittering stars abound. A house gains the glittering personalities, of the people it has known, Like pearl moon at the witching hour, emits a glow that's not its own! Memory echoes within these walls, of young and old, of joy and tears, As a tangerine mist arrives at dawn, then in gold sunshine disappears. Through the residents I led a rich life, I held their hopes and dreams, And saw sickness and health and triumph, and invading moonbeams. Over the span of two hundred years, myriad people came in and out, Like sequin stars dazzle jet black space, all along the heavenly route. Of the residents, I have had favorites, who valued and cared for me, And who were also loving and kind, like soft moonbeams, very pretty. However, I'll allow that some of the others, didn't happen to be nice, And were selfish to a fault, while the golden hours moved clockwise. Through the countless fruitful seasons, I saw a million casual visitors, In an apparently endless plumb line, with mail carriers and solicitors. I saw real talent and creativity, departing to realize cherished dreams, And entire lifetimes passed beneath my gaze, like animated figurines! Now I'm merely home to small animals, birds and occasional vagrants, Floating in and out like the summer's breeze, with old roses' fragrance. These days I feel empty and lonesome, like wind moaning in the trees, Or the amaranth solitary bloom, lifelong passion of buzzing honeybees. At times curiosity peeks in the window, and what narratives I could tell, But just as quickly it then disappears, hello swiftly followed by farewell. The boisterous brook still rushes past, and the grass has grown so tall, Rampant ivy covers my windows, as green creeps along the outer walls. Countless birds are in the rafters, and the rain is persistently coming in, Doors are coming off of their hinges, and the past will never come again! The people still have a place in my heart, as I loved each and every one, As flowers love the warm saffron days, in the golden ages of fervent sun. There is fine dust in every room, and some people say that I'm haunted, Like a flaming sunset that colors the sky, where gold was once flaunted. Once I was beautiful, and elegant, until the day the laughter died down, Now I live through extraordinary memory, as the fall in beauty abounds!