To a Crumbling House

Not yet unlivable, your ceiling sags,
the soffit's rotten boards are peeling paint,
your floors slope south, the front door swells and drags
with every rain. We call your ruin quaint.

We love each crooked room, the narrow stairs,
the high stone porch, the arching fireplace.
Of course, if you were ours, we'd make repairs,
but leave untouched some of your shaky grace.

Even if we could turn back year on year,
disguise the damage, halt your slow decline
around us, you remind us to hold dear
beautiful failures of our own design,
and love the lives we build and make them sweet,
which all the time are tumbling to our feet.

Copyright © 2006 Chelsea Rathburn All rights reserved
from The Shifting Line
University of Evansville Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission