A Contained Life

A Contained Life

Our house in Danbury

Had a screened porch 

On the North side

Facing the neighbor’s yard 

Full of trees

Beyond our hemlock hedge.

The screened porch was a place for shade

And for reading old books from my 

Grandmother’s attic.

Climbing onto the thick cushion of the chaise lounge

Gram had given to dad, her son-in-law, 

Where I could stretch out when he did not

Near the Victorian wicker table,

Also from Gram,

To read books filled with ladies and gentlemen,

Good mothers, and children who learn life’s lessons,

Because finding stillness and shade, 

Disappearing into stories

Was a way to find solace and to endure

The solitude that came with growing up.

Years later

To increase the value of the house

Dad would replace the screens with storm windows,

Put down carpet over the wooden boards

Of the floor that stood over a crawl space,

The hinges rusted shut, that

Concealed perhaps forever

The rotating mower of another time

When some other family lived there,

When the value of the house was measured

In nature, gardens paved with slate paths,

A stone barbecue, a rolling strawberry patch,

A vegetable garden, and a garden

Landscaped to look wild

And was by the time we moved there

In the early 70s.

The irises, dahlias, and a few errant daffodils

That washed in, it seemed, 

From just beyond the cherry tree on the property line.

In spring, I would breathe deep

The perfume of those blossoms

And think to myself this was what love smelled like

Long, long ago.

I would climb the ancient cinder blocks

Alongside the shed near the compost pile 

In the southwest corner

And look up at the venerable trees

Waiting for the wind

And the joyous dance of freedom

That took me up and away

Soaring with ancestral spirits

Reveling in the clouds 

Well above a contained life.

I was happy there,

And I did not feel alone.