Showing posts with label West Andover. Show all posts
Showing posts with label West Andover. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Common Things



On our first morning in the house
our new home not yet cold
from its last abandonment

we tiptoed on our thin young legs
down to the cool cellar
heavy with the scent of stone and earth

we found a workbench with a few hand saws
tinged with rust in this electric age
and on the floor a 12 pound sledge

useless      with a splintered handle
that could have easily been replaced
if anyone had cared

half way down the basement was
a heavy timbered room
about ten feet on either side

whose door barely responded
to the pull of a ten
and an eight year old

but when it did and when we groped
to find the switch
a single hanging bulb lit up

to reveal a large square chest
a room within a room
a poultry incubator six feet tall

varnished oak with frame and panel doors
drawer after drawer of wire mesh
brass hinges and latches with long thick handles

handles that pulled easily
handles cast without a care
for a bit of extra metal

handles as long as a young boy’s arm
with graceful curves to welcome the hand
and a thickening at the end

to signify nothing but the maker’s sense
of how such a simple metal piece
should look to the eye and feel to the touch

good for nothing now except
to fasten closed a wooden door
if there was something left to seal inside

good for nothing but to teach
a little boy the feel of common things
and help him understand what beauty is



© 2015 Frank Kearns



Tuesday, February 3, 2015

My Father’s House


My Father’s House

The house of my memory
is a semi-rural farm house
with musty smells of
old wall paper and indoor plants.
You              retired
sitting at the dining room table
in pajamas and bathrobe
cigarettes and coffee
AM talk radio
KFWB Boston
daily pleasure
at the agonies of the traffic report.

The house of my dream
is a different house
on a narrow fishing-town street
before great grandmother’s knick-knacks became
a part of frozen memory.
You are a boy
entering the magic door
winding up the attic staircase
the wood a lighter brown with hints of red
the steps twisting and so narrow.

The photograph is yellowed.
You are so delicate in your uniform
your China Burma India Theater patch
jumping out from small shoulders.
Your eyes are feeling something,
seeing something beyond you and me.

In the attic
rubber band model planes
delicate balsa stringers
with tissue paper skin
light as the still air.
And a homemade short wave radio set.
You hear the news
open that high peak window
lean out
and shout to the neighborhood
Pearl Harbor has been attacked!