— after Ted Hughes’s “Wycoller Hall”
Such sashaying of dresses through rooms
Such varnish and floor polish
So much sweeping mopping dusting
So many murmured prayers
So much outward reverence and inward doubt
So much drying of eyes
So much perseverance, so little income
So many bushels of barley
So many acres and threshers and chaff
So much helplessness waiting for rain
Storms missing south
Such expansion of operations so many debts
So many lenders so much collecting
Such coming and going of trucks so many trucks
Such study of properties and taxes
Such studied genealogies for clues
Such hanging of dim oval portraits
So many generations leaving
Such flitting of swallows so much singing
Such spitting between boots such strings of cursing
Such fogging of mirrors
So much hail on roofs
Such raising of voices and barns
So many fish fries and potlucks
So much blushing between cousins
So much paperwork flyspecked and yellowing
So many decades of feigned happiness
So many farewells, bitter farewells
Cheerful farewells, unavoidable farewells
Such unexpected homecomings, feared homecomings
Such joyous homecomings, so many homecomings
Such returning of prodigals, so many tires in gravel
So many mouths, so much smiling
So many christenings
So much undeserved tragedy
So much cursing of the Lord
So much kneeling before the Lord
So much confessing, such reconciling
So many signs of peace
So much forgetting of names
So many visitors, so many screen porch evenings
So much calling to dinner so many dishes
So much gossip so many corsages
So many funerals
So much drinking, so many sympathies
So many birthdays at the gravesite
So much tending
So many years brush-burning
Such subdivision
So many long winters at windows
Hearing the geese leaving returning
So many miles of rosaries
So much worship of the old house
So much history in the old dark house
So much mildew of the northern siding
So much safety inside the darkness
Of the old house, so many lamplit evenings
So many footsteps lampshades trembling
Through upstairs bedroom floors
Such angry striding such misery
Such shouting
So many apologies
Such distillation of sorrow
Drunk finally to the last
Cellar stairs and blown leaves
The bottle broken
Honestly feel like I lived an entire lifetime between the beginning and end of this poem. Plus, I now have the Lucinda Williams song “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” stuck on repeat in my head. Thanks for the trip❤️ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/rediscover-lucinda-williams-car-wheels-on-a-gravel-road/amp/