My Home

My Home

Grasping at straws, I bless another day

Of having felt not much less than all right.

I wrote a paragraph and put some more

Books in a box for books to throw away.

Such were my deeds. Now, short of breath and sore

From all that effort, I prepare for night,

Which occupies the windows as I climb

The stairs. A step up and I stand, each time,

Posed like the statue of a man in pain,

Although I’m really not: just weak and slow.

This is the measure of my dying years:

The sad skirl of a piper in the rain

Who plays “My Home”. If I seem close to tears

It’s for my sins, not sickness. Soon the snow

Will finish readying the ground for spring.

The cold, if not the warmth that it will bring,

Is made, each day, so clearly manifest

I thank my lucky stars for second sight.

The children of our street head off for school

Most mornings, stronger for their hours of rest.

Plump in their coloured coats they prove a rule

By moving brilliantly through soft white light:

We fade away, but…