The Corner House

It has been interesting to work in the particular area that I do here in Nashville. We are not on the main Music Row boulevards, but are tucked away on a small street near the Vanderbilt campus and numerous little restaurants and coffee shops.

My original office windows looked out onto a small back street rarely used except for a shortcut to somewhere else or randomly used by tenants from an old apartment building across the street from our back door. My current office has a less changing and open view, but that’s ok. I’m still thankful every day for my wonderful job!

When my office took in the view of the quiet street behind us, I felt that I came to recognize some of the neighbors of the area - an old man in a beret pushing along a cart with his grocery bags, a young homeless man living in the back of his car and an elderly lady who occasionally sat out on the side steps of her house watching the world go by.

I would love to know their stories, but perhaps the sweet-faced, white-haired woman especially. Her house is somewhat neglected and crumbling these days, but if you look closely you will see the showplace that it must have been when it was built. There are graceful details, intricate embellishments… all the things that are sadly lacking in so many houses of today where every corner is cut by builders.

I was intrigued with these various people that I saw every day and wrote several poems about them. I thought I’d share one with you…

Try not to laugh at my poor attempts at poetry, Pamela’s Girls!

Love you!
Auntie J.

The Corner House

We drove up
and it was all new –
my dress, your suit,
our house,
our love.

We laughed at our sheer and perfect luck.

It was neat red brick -
high-gabled,
dormers looking down
onto quiet, rustling tree boughs
and scalloped woodwork
bright with fresh paint.

I walked into the kitchen
and when I looked at the gleaming, bare floor
and walls,
the new white stove
and the round-topped little refrigerator
with it’s shining, frigid shelves –
all I could see
was the table we’d have
and it would be heaped with food,
and the faces around it
would be varying smaller shades
of you
and me.

A week into the house,
you pulled up in that new car.
And I squealed with surprise
and hugged your neck.
We drove around the block
and down the street -
and didn’t come back
until after midnight
and kisses and hamburgers
under the starry skies
at Centennial Park.

I couldn’t decide between
daffodils and tulips for the front walk
and so I planted both.
And the second spring
they made me giddy
with a hundred glancing tints
of red and yellow.

We had 20 perfect winters and falls -
cozy inside,
with you and me
alone.
But it was always
Enough -
and more -
it was plentiful.

But there came a summer
when the blooming stopped.
And you were silent and still.

I stood alone
in the front hall
after the service
and the quiet pounded
on my eardrums.
It clattered across the tree-canopied back yard
and as I locked the gate
behind that mellowed & weathered black car,
I knew that purring old engine
would never feel the touch
of a key again.

They offer me laughable sums now.
But I refuse.
Both for the house
And car now overgrown with vines
and bricked in by lanky trees-of-heaven.
It will never move again.
And neither will I.

I will wait.

Occasionally stepping outside
to let the wind sift through my hair,
now white and thin.
I smell the tulips
and the daffodils.
And they call to me to embrace them.
It’s hard to reach them beside the front walk,
but I am happy
to know they are there
and to smell their presence.

Yes, within this corner house -
I have been -
and am -
happy.
Full and complete.
And I smile
into the sunshine
as it passes over.