A House On the Cliff's Edge
There is a house on the cliff’s edge,
Around a quiet, unmarked shoreline
At night, the tide lifts high against a foggy moon
In the morning, gloomy clouds settle with the sea
At times, not even the birds are seen or heard
The house is left to nature’s caress
Home-crafted seashell chimes sway and sing with the wind
Crushed sand dollars lie together on the back porch
The shells were once whole, collected by the former owners
Long gone are they now, smiling with the moon
The owners are the very sound of the ocean spray,
Striking the rocks, announcing the cool dawn of day
They are not the dark, empty rooms,
The rooms that nobody thinks of as they go about their lives
The quiet owners are long gone—thought of only by one
A stillborn legacy about as tiresome as the sun,
When the clouds crisp out its beams . . .
A seawater puddle is in the middle of the dining room
Nobody knows it sits there, sinking in the floorboards
It used to be a far larger puddle after a storm,
Stealthily leaking into the house
But now it is small—so small—and the boards are moist,
Moist with its only companion amongst the instilled silence
Nobody thinks of empty, abandoned rooms
Nobody remembers the former owners
They were not much for socials and gatherings
They always lived their quiet, happy lives
Without a care of the outside world,
Far from anybody’s thought
Miles from the nearest home
Where the next generation comfortably lives
He never finished fixing that leak . . .
Sometimes the puddle gets bigger after other storms
And when it does, there is almost life there again
You can see the chandelier reflected on the unperturbed water
As a crystal dangles and falls from on high
The dark silence following the drop is as deep as thought . . .
Nobody thinks of empty, abandoned rooms
Nobody remembers the former owners
There is merely a house on the cliff’s edge
Around a quiet, unmarked shoreline
-March 21, 2013-
Copyright © Laura Breidenthal | Year Posted 2013
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