A Housewarming

I can imagine, years from now, your coming back

to this high, old, white house. "Home" I shouldn't say

because we can't predict who'll live here with a different 

     name. 

How tall the birches will be then. Will you look up

from the road past the ash for light in the study windows

upstairs and down? Go climb the black maple as first

in new sneakers you walked forty feet in air

and saw the life to come. Don't forget the cats.

Because you grow away from a house, no matter how much you 

     come back,
if the people you love are elsewhere, or if the reason is, 

     say,

nostalgia, don't worry about small changes or lost names.

Sit down for a minute under the tallest birch. Look up

at the clouds reflected in the red barn's twisted window.

Lean on the wall. Hear our voices as at first

they shook the plaster, laughed, then burned in the dry air

like a wooden house. I imagine you won't forget the cats.

-F.D. Reeve