but a shell

ghosts … peek every corner these walls were the vessel of a family - the body of a progenic spirit that inhabited these bones of wood and plaster and glass … and hope for nearly four tens of years … a blood of intent and care coursed these walls - surging with amity and loving instruction it’s familial marrow warmed by two happy and humble hearts that thrummed sweet for all who tumbled weary across its threshold or saw its welcoming glimmer in the depths of night heralding them home … these doors, now shut and silent, once spread their arms wide in consanguinity embracing each soul as their own and whispering every ear with cordiality … and accommodation but … just as our flesh is the repository of the incorporeal - the true essence of what defines each of us and carries on long after the bones and body have come to dust, so is this beloved structure but a shell … the hearts that found comfort here - that sang and wept and worked … that spun their dreams and mended wounds … that loved and laughed and argued … that shared pain and lauded joys … that buoyed life and railed at death and ever found kindness to be their preferred enterprise … those pulses will go on long after this abode has come to ruination for these rooms and roofs and ramparts are but a house yet the spirits that once moved here - that found joy in one-another - THEY were the true home and those divine beings we carry with us always bound by the only force that transcends time … love. Copyright © September 19, 2024 Gregory Richard Barden