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| The Cedars, 1983 |
1) On my Fifty-Second Birthday
I have returned, on foot,
to the Cedars, the country house
where I lived almost twenty years
before returning to the city.
It is cold outside and the yard
is littered with cardboard boxes
and broken farm equipment.
As I approach the house
I wonder how the new owners
will receive me: perhaps
they are still angry
at discovering thousands
of bats living in the attic, as they
complained about this
after they moved in.
How could country people
not have expected bats
or even mice
in a country house?
But they seem not to notice
my presence, and they appear
nice enough. I am like a ghost here
walking from room to room
while these people
talk, eat, and are oblivious
to me. These new owners
have put in big windows,
the rooms are larger now,
walls have been removed
and a smaller, more efficient
wood stove installed.
The house is messy,
beds unmade,
some rooms not used at all
just containing junk.
This is my old home,
but there is nothing left
of my having lived here.
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