I don’t recognize this weathered place

These worn-down halls, this worn-out space

From this shrunken doorway I am struck by the sense

Of this phantom presence of great emptiness

 

With a mournful breath I step inside

Into the corpse where I once did reside

The silence then shattered by a floorboard’s creak

As if, in recognition, the house tries to speak

 

I wade through the dust that covers the floor

‘Til I come to a stop before a splintered door

The paint long faded, the knob rusted through

And suddenly long buried memories came into view

 

A bunk bed once lay beside this wall

And there! A carpet where an infant did crawl

The window where the light of summer once gleamed

And all the world was just as it seemed

 

I open my eyes and awake from that dream

of childhood’s hour, now lost in Time’s stream

I approach the cracked window and stop to stare

at the crying old man, reflected back there.

 

I watch for a while, trying desperately to see

What had changed more, my home or me?