In An Antique House

When I quietly rise from bed, unable to sleep,
I know you are there. I see, or perhaps feel
Your face hovering in the gloom of the front hall,
You with your sallow cheeks and large, doleful eyes
Which stare at me, cold and vacant,
As they always stare.

Former resident of this old, crooked house,
You watch me open the creaking doors.
You are puzzled to find that your bony hands
Can not turn the glass door knobs,
Yet your breath moves the lace curtains
We have hung in your windows.

Old husbandman, you slowly shake your head at me
As I grope my way through the dark to the old farm kitchen.
I fear that turning on a light will scare you away.
Your watchful presence is unnerving,
Yet somehow comforting.

We are old friend, ghostly companion. Your gray face
Watches me move about the house
With no expression of comprehension.
I hear you closing cabinet doors in the kitchen
Or pounding on the wall outside the back door.
I think it troubles you to see how your house has become old,
How it sags and leans toward the brook
From which your blond sons once pulled trout.

When I pace the confines of your narrow, antique attic
You stand patiently by the fly-specked window, watching me.
And I have the feeling that there is something you would like to say
If you could but bring forth sound from your dusty throat.

I sense your presence throughout the house.
When I stoop bemused in your cramped. musty cellar,
Wondering how much longer the rusting boiler will last
I know you are there with me, also watching.
In the attic, as I look out at the back yard
Through the fly-specked windows you are there,
You and the other wavering shadows
Who still guard this antique house.

I leave the kitchen and return to your bedroom, sliding quietly
Between the sheets so as not to disturb my wife.
As I lie there, listening to my wife and the soft rise and fall of her sleep
I know you are there, too.

Now I can hear you all, crowded together in the hush
Of the empty dining room. You whisper to each other
With dry, paper-thin voices that are like
The rustling of the leaves on the lilacs outside the window.

You look around, revenant inhabitants of this narrow house;
You stare, amazed by what you see.
Where is the reed organ that played hymns in the parlor?
What happened to the clock that hung on the dining room wall?

You stop in the kitchen, wavering,
Afraid of the sleek, humming metal boxes
That stand where you had only a cast iron stove
And a hand pump at the sink.
You reach for chairs that are not where you left them.
You close doors that are no longer there.

The night wears on; soon it will be day.
You hear the whine of the trucks on the interstate.
The plaster walls vibrate at the hum of tires –
Sounds you could never have imagined.

As the dawn light turns to gray I stir in my bed.
You are disquieted, not sure whether to stay
Or to fade into the cracks and dark places
Of your antique house.