When I am very old, I want to live in an old house, an old house by the side of a forgotten road, gravel dirt and winding. White clapboard frame, with paint peeling, windows staring as sentinels, porch leaning, its pillars covered with vines, the capitals barely supporting the sagging porch roof, a riot of holly hocks overwhelming its base.
Yes, when I am very old I want to live in an old empty house with bare wood floors, white with scuffing, the boards uneven, gaping at the corner walls where mice meld and might scurry at my steps. I want the curtains, once white Battenberg, waving in tatters, yellowed by relentless days of sunshine-rent like the temple curtain by a thousand thunder storms, blown by breezes shuddering cold, winter winds rattling the panes, howling like wolves. And I want the rooms sweltering in summer-dank with oppressive heat- so heavy it pins you to your chair, so all you can do is sit, motionless, silent as the air.
The steps to the upstairs story, ascending and descending like Jacobs ladder are missing boards-and ambition, they are too treacherous to contemplate climbing, and are irrelevant now-the rungs of success and failure becoming too indistinguishable, rising and falling now reduced to my own breathing out and in.
All my loves are vanished and dissolved beneath the creaking floorboards. The rooms echo empty-the rugs long consigned to the dump out back-the cat who ruined them lies wrapped in silk, buried beneath the ginkgo trees whose leaves smell of her pee. The rusty gate to the back forty lies dismantled on an ancient trash pile, rusty and crooked, yet the bleating sheep still gather round it yearning for the security of the fold at night. “ Let down the bars, O Death, The tired flocks come in.” (1)
The hooves of stamping cows, impatient in the barn still sound against packed earth, the morning air hangs wet and heavy, thick with the memory of their warm and fecund breath. The barn is mostly fallen down , the birds hallow its rafters with their song .I listen from the rooms of my old house, from the sanctuary that has seen the suffering that produces endurance, whose name I know. Today no pictures decorate these empty walls, save an old daguerreotype of my great grand father, precariously hanging from an old rusty wire: unsmiling-his eyes blaze from the dark frame, defiant of contingency-of existence’s vicissitudes. He was fourteen when the Civil War ended. He saw Morgan’s Raiders ride into his town. He is still offended.
The banister still bears the red stain of the wine my uncle Ron spilled there, laughing and drunken, he kissed the girls and made them cry. Now I see small ants caress the stain with their tiny feelers still sensing the residue of sweetness there. I walk, no, shuffle from room to room, regarding the peeling wallpaper, loosed like my mind. My nylon knee high’s fold down now, mostly, on my swollen ankles. I have taken to wearing calico housedresses. They are capacious and forgiving of my fallen state. My arms now wave goodbye in flapping gusts, in waves, and I remember being an infant on my great aunts lap; wondering at the crepe soft folds of her arms which have since become mine.
I am waiting in these rooms-empty of things- but filled with vibrations that buzz like the bees that hum against the kitchen glass. The table near the stove rattles with the tinkling of china cups and clattering spoons, the coffee percolates and I drink in deeply its phantom smell and sacrament. A rolling pin creaks, dusted with the flour of the endless piecrusts Aunt Ruth set like sails against an ocean of difficulties, against the coming day. With strawberry rhubarb pie any calamity can be endured-and endurance produces hope and hope does not disappoint.
When I am old, I want to live in a very old house. The dank basement dark and cool where stand the pantry shelves still decked with mason quart jars that held pickles and peaches, standing and winking from their dusty corner, waiting to be filled again and again with providence, like the garden; waiting fallow.
I return, finally, to the living room, the sun tells its truth slant (2) as it nears its curve toward dusk; sideways it casts its setting shaft onto the fireplace, illuminating it with reflected fire. A book lies on the mantle, the book about the one who loved the pilgrim soul in you and loved the sorrows of your changing face. (3) For endurance produces hope and hope does not disappoint-thought hope is sometimes disappointing. But love is still poured, poured into our hearts, poured out in sacrifice made on daily altars, poured out like honey in sunshine. For the present suffering are nothing compared to the glory that has been and is to come.(4)
My old house is not empty, the removers to remove no alteration finds (5) for love is love after all, and fills all things as Christ does.
So when I am very old, I will live in this old house. I will wait for the arrival. My ticket purchased, only my departure to be determined. I am not worried. It will be a nice trip. But, about this old house, who will know of its secrets, its glories, its loves poured out and spilled, glories and pleasures held? Who will remember? The spirit and the gifts are ours through him who with us sideth.(6)
Venus is now sparkling her diadem over the evening moon- and so she was, over the moon for love. The holly hocks, in her silver glow, whisper of rain coming. Now the sky and ground are blending into violet, covering the hills, seeping into grasses, coloring purple the white clapboard of my old house, the rooms; silent and waiting.
I listen for Emily’s carriage approaching, a light coming on the dim driveway, the car horn like Gabriel’s trumpet announcing the arrival, the crunch of the tires on gravel, His step (7)) on the porch as I turn toward the door.
Linda Farmer-Lewis, May 30, 2010
(1) Let down the bars, O Death
The tired flocks come in whose bleating ceases to repeat, whose wandering is done. Thine is the stillest night, Thine is the securest fold; Too near thou art for seeking thee. Too tender to be told. Let down the bars, O Death! The tired flocks come in. Anonymous
(2) Emily Dickinson Poetry-
Tell all the truth, but tell it slant.
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind-
(3) William. Butler Yeats Poetry-
When you are old and fray and full of sleep
And slowly nodding by the fire, take down this book ;
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had
once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
(4) Romans 5: 1-5 ST. Paul
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God Through our Lord Jesus Christ;. Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God.
More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.
(5) Shakespeare Sonnet xviii
Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when it alteration find, Or bends
With the remover to remove: O, no it is an ever-fixed mark< That looks on tempests and is never shaken: It is the star to every wand’ring bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his
bending sickle’s compass come; Love alters not with his brief
hours and weeks, But bears it our even to the edge of doom;-If
this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man
ever loved.
(6) Martin Luther, A Mighty Fortress is Our God
That word above all earthly powers, not thanks to them abideth; The Spirit and the gifts are ours, thru him who with us sideth. Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also; the body they may kill; Gods truth abideth still; his kingdom is forever.
(7) Emily Dickinson Poetry
I sing to use the waiting. My bonnet but to tie, And shut the door into my house; No more to do have I. Till, his best step approaching, We journey to the day. And tell each other how we sang to keep the dark away.
