After she died,
grandmother's farmhouse–
without anyone's intending it–
evolved into a shrine,
a monument to our lost history.

Untouched, year upon year,
it dusted over,
much like, every week,
the oak table that anchored the kitchen
dusted over with flour on baking day–
only everywhere now–
thick on painted window sills,
on the maple dresser with her hairbrush and combs,
on the lace doilies protecting the backs and arms
    of the living-room chairs,
on the 1060 Philco TV with its rabbit ears,
on the black rotary  phone in the niche in the foyer…

And the only disruption
to this slow layering of time,
this particle-by-particle obscuring of memory,
were our occasional, sad footprints
across the hardwood floor,
and the thin crisscrossing tracks of the field mice
for whom this ancient house
was the Holy Land, Mecca, Nirvana
safety, security, a vast and silent playground,
from generation unto generation…

Text and image © 2012 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.