House
        What we speak becomes the house we live in.
            —Hafez

Fall backwards, the paper reads.
So we set the clock from twehre
to eleven, feel a night breeze
drift from porch, and listen
to the mockingbird sing its
territorial rendition of finch,
titmouse, crow, wren, towhee.
How paying attention
makes the world specific
and the nouns that name it.
The boy inside the man
remember being taught
birdsongs and the mythos
of plant names—bloodroot,
Dutchman' britches, aster.
Yahweh commanded Adam
to name, so the garden became
the house they lived in. And
even after The Fall, nothing
could stop the naming, as
humans became little gods,
fearful of death. HAFEZ, how
we speak the words sets a tone,
decorates the house, makes it
a home. Patina of kitchen table
where our family held court,
Grandmother's dishes we ate
from on Sundays, Grandfather's
rocker reserved for Father, each
family's oral book of rules.
The man the boy became knows
that what we speak can also make an
empty house with broken windows.

Tweet

Copyright © 2021 Bill Brown All rights reserved
from The Headless Angel
Iris Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission