On Remembering Old Houses

As a child, I think I understood the vagaries,
enchantments, possibilities of wood: I liked –
was drawn to – rich extremities of shutter, shingle,
library and door – paneled wall and parquet floor –
and more – as if I knew the ghosts of pine and oak
and maple shoots that had become them still
were harbored in their grain – chromosomally

verbatim to the first green coursing stuff that fed
their veins and bred them in their mother trees –
and if I sat there quietly enough I might sustain
an ease, a receptivity: detect some sense of soul
that surely must remain – in so much dark
and polished and, though seen, forgotten,
disregarded lumber: in refrain, in softly breathing

slumber, surely there was music to be heard:
in all these fashioned boards and newel posts
and shelves whose dark Victoriana’s hidden hosts
of private selves still dwelled – for too long
barren and neglected – surely one might yet
impart the proper yearned-for kiss. I am a creature
whom the Nineteenth Century must miss.

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