Love in a House with Children

For my wife on my 40th birthday

Crumpled bedcovers heap like crude sculptures in the angled sunlight
Yet warm but already forgotten as the Saturday begins
The comforting warble of a television, the burble of a coffee maker
The hum of the washing machine, the crackling of bacon
Consume the silence today as every day.

Rolled up in the back of the closet are the leather boots
The sheer stockings, the videos and the travel brochures
Bills and insurance notices splayed over the pine table
That once bore a vase of stately roses and a note
Of apology, or congratulations, who can remember which.

One life is lost but oddly enough not missed
The new too burgeoning and bright to spare grief
Nor is the old completely gone -- it surges through the cracks like vivid weeds
Found in the corners and soft whispers and passing touches
It will return. And when it does the interlopers will be missed.

Comments

[Moof]

Your poetry is beautiful, Dr. Hebert. Again, I think I *almost* follow you, but then on the last paragraph, I'm not sure again. Is the "life lost" referring to life before children, and are they the interlopers who will be missed when that lost life returns?

If it's your birthday ... when, Saturday? ... then I want to wish you the absolute best on reaching the decade's milestone.

Have a happy birthday ... and a happy and safe 4th of July! :o)

[Cathy]

You write beautiful poetry Dr. Hebert. To me this poem was about two people being lovers in a world all of their own. then the children came and a new way of life took over. one day the lovers will have all this time once again to themselves, and when they do, the children will be missed.

But then I'm a romantic, I see romance when it isn't there. but, that is what I saw between your magic words.Am I right?

[Cathy]

oppps, I hadn't read what Moof wrote before I posted. I guess we both saw the same thing.

[Phillip Gordon]

Very nice.

[HP]

Beautiful.

[Jo]

You managed to say what others only think.
Thank you for sharing it....
It is beautiful, and oh so true.
A bright ray in an otherwise exhausting day.
Cheers