What About the House That Died in the Fire?

 

What about the house that died?

The what?

The one that died in the fire?

You mean that old burned-out shell of a building

Wedged into the middle of the block there?

Yeah, that one.

 

Don’t be silly! Houses don’t die.

Sure they do. They do all the time. This one did.

What do you mean?

Well, look at it. Can you really not see it?

See what?

The ghost that sits among the living, of course!

 

You say it’s just an abandoned building. Well,

Maybe it’s not.

Imagine the stories it would tell if

Only someone would stop to listen once in awhile.

But instead it sits here, falling apart from lack of love.

Can’t you hear its wailing and howling?

 

The house that lived here

Must have once been beautiful.

There! Do you see the remnants

Of red shingles on the roof?

Can you really not see it?

Surely you can't be that blind!

 

You look at it and see a heap of gray stone.

I look at it and see possibility:

Treasures buried in ashes, and secrets

Hidden in scorch marks.

Discoveries waiting to be discovered

By anyone who has the time to make them.

 

You see an unkempt lawn, brown and brittle;

This poor abode’s one, lonely companion.

And as the weeds and cattails grow taller,

The gray blocks and rotting eaves sag closer

To the earth, under the weight of decay.

I see a soul crying from its own dust.

 

Someone must have loved it once

And lived there...raised a child, perhaps.

Just imagine the family dinners once held

And the entrancing bedtime stories once shared.

Imagine how much history

Has settled on those blackened floorboards.

 

Perhaps a brood of siblings have played out the stories

Heard the night before in the yard.

Perhaps a pair of secret lovers have met through

That window there to run away for a night. Or maybe two.

Perhaps some old beloved grandfather has passed

On into the next life in there, unaware that this house would follow.

 

But still you just see ruins?

You’re as tasteless as every other too-busy

Passerby that’s passed it by.

Day by day, it looks grayly on

As the world averts its gaze, guiltily oblivious to

Its past, present, and potential.

 

Nobody takes even the time to sigh

As they take in the picture of lonely desolation

And breathe in the sooty scars

And rain-rotted past

Of this “burned-out shell.”

And so it continues its slow death.

 

I suppose in a way you are right.

As long as that house stands, it is not dead.

You could even say it’ll remain alive until the day

They knock it down. But until they knock it down,

It is dying. Well, I say it was dead from the moment

The flames first licked its plaster bedroom walls

 

Because no one’s thought to save it.