7.17.2008

History

I was instructed to write about what I saw:

Once,
After many years alone,
After many dinners at restaurants alone,
An old man adopted a little girl,
Loved her like he loved his books,
Shelves and shelves of old spines,
That bent and creaked like his,
They were his brothers.
He would sit beside her bed and read,
Story after StoryafterStory,
Till he was sure she was dreaming.
And when she grew up,
He parceled out all the land he had acquired,
From being so old,
Ten acres given for every year he had a family,
And he separated them with crossing lines,
Of steadfast spruce trees.
In the coattails of youth and the height of beauty,
She began to steal away,
With her own lovers - like his books,
Each with Story after StoryafterStory,
Till she found her Story,
And sold all the acres of the old man's love,
But the one his house was on,
And as the year passed for him to give that away as well,
He tore through the old wooden floor,
And in the center of the room he planted,
The last of the trees he had used as borders.
Their roots sucked deep from his love,
And when the old man passed away,
Everything was left to her and her new family,
But the one spot where the tree grew.
Years added one by one,
Like so many coats of paint,
The old man's house was torn down,
The land used for everything imaginable,
All under the sight of the tree.
It saw a boy's first kiss,
A marriage,
A new condominium
An old condominium,
A seemingly endless strawberry patch,
And then nothing,
But the dew and those driving by,
On the old highway beside,
So in that way,
The old man who had been taken up by the roots,
Had many more families than he had ever imagined,
And he wasn't even sad,
When after too many years for anyone to care,
His last bit of love was torn down,
And used for more books,
Exactly like those he had collected,
And in that way he was full,
And nothing but thankful.

2 comments:

appletrain said...

i was all the way at the planting of tree before i realized what you were talking about.
that was lovely.

Anonymous said...

this is fabulous. I may have missed the meaning behind it but I loved it all the same.