Through the Open Window

 

The air, sour and stagnant, 

hung heavy in the starless night

finally breaking with the passing shower,

the change announced by the tree frogs

singing with the joy of a children’s chorus,

unbridled and unconstrained.

The white light of an almost-full moon

slants across the yard;

in stealth form, it slips over the sill, 

casting odd shapes on the bedroom wall.

The summer nights of a childhood

long-passed have slipped in, too—

a time when rest came easy,

tucked between crisp linen sheets

we’d fold into our dreams,

the earthen smell of dampness in the air,

and the sound of crickets

 singing us to sleep.

 

© Ginny Brannan

Image Credit: Alexandr Vasilyev, Shutterstock 2013

Begin Again

Love once lived here…

built stone on stone, year on year,

mortar mixed with sweat and tears.

a photo worth a thousand words

of what was built back in the day.

now broken down and in decay;

Nothing ever stays the same,

all falls prey to wind and change,

and every tumbled brick and stone

reminds us of the things that were

and all that we once called our own.

Yet what is viewed a casualty

holds endless possibility…

so clean the cobwebs, sweep the sill,

shine the hearth and light a fire;

set the beams and cornerstone,

breathe new life into this place

once abandoned, overgrown.

Dreams are hope filled with desire

and lost inside this reverie

an aspiration from within;

that what was lost can be rebuilt,

just waiting to begin again.

© Ginny Brannan 2022

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but credit where credit is due in that first line that inspired this is borrowed, but all that follow after are not.