Old House
We are this house's future ghosts
moving soundlessly between rooms
suffusing the air with our private laughter.
Our smells begin to cleave to the wood.
The old scents have started to vanish
as we rub names off cabinet doors.
But still we hear the floorboards sighing
at night. It is the house remembering.
This house, at fifty, is old enough
to keep secrets, to gather moments.
It has memories of lives other than ours
and when it remembers, we hear the echoes.
Or see a waving. But always, always we feel the sorrow
of something left behind to carry the heaviness,
to bear all the marks on its skin,
to open its doors, once more, to passing shadows.
source: Crowns and Oranges Works by Young Philippine Poets; edited by Cirilio Bautista and Ken Ishikawa.
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