Spirit.

Wyeth, Back Entry, 1971

HUMBLE HOUSE

Even the lawn is cramped with hydrangeas,

white heirloom lilies, wild creeper roses
running the length of the porch, all of it
sloped on a grade from the yard to the road.

The perspective is childhood or old age,

poor, but not poor enough to discern it.

Nor is the house large enough to waste room.

Perhaps company will come soon, unannounced

but no one will sit in the sitting room.

That's for Hummel figurines, for small frames

unpolished for months, tarnished as flatware,

for old plates, photos, plastic-covered chairs.

That's for the passing of the spirit world

through the spirit of the house.  Everyone

would rather stand in the kitchen where fruit

pies crisp on the sill, swing on the side porch,

or sit smoking or sewing or talking,

or take coffee in a cane chair upstairs.

There's a functional humility in

everything but that room, where nobody stays.

Soon enough we will go to our places

down the road, where the creek cuts through the graves.

The whole family waits there, passing toward home,
worm and mole, creeper and clod, humus, loam.

David Baker