Art of Poetry's Patricia Deaton shares her poem inspired by the Douglas Grant watercolor at Art of Poetry Catawba Valley's tour of Hickory Museum of Art - October 13, 2018.
OLD HOUSE
by Patricia Deaton
after Over Yander by Douglas Grant
Old House, call the
young girl home
who cooked for those
who raised your roof that day.
They lingered
underneath this oak, among them
young men, bound to
go to war.
Call to that whole
family, sick inside your cozy walls
order nailed upon the
door to keep disease and death in.
They rest now upon
the rise, stones as white as bones
that mark their
graves.
Call to the man who
wanders in across the yard
from bottom land, and
wonders if he’s seen this place before
Upstairs in dreams,
he cries for things he never will forget
and hopes, to God, he
never sees again.
Old house, call all
the people home who filled
your days with hard and
less-hard ways of life
back then, when innocence could
not last for long.
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