The House Across the Street, A Poem by Imogene Bolls

 

Elder RiverSoul, emeritus professor of biology, keeps the memory of his deceased wife Imogene Bolls alive through poetry readings at a local retirement community and submissions on Elders Speaking.

 "The House Across the Street," appears in  Earthbound (Bottom Dog Press, 1989).  The house depicted in the poem was one of several homes torn down after the First Presbyterian Church of Manhattan, Kansas bought the rest of the block in hopes of building a new Church.

The image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay is a representation of houses built during the same era as the home mentioned in the poem.  

The House Across the Street

 

in my hometown is gone.

So is Widow Bonham,

with her white hair tied back in a bun,

swaying in the wide green swing

on the wide white porch all the long

lavender evening I was young.

 

The widow and her house belonged

to the block the way one comes

to expect the sun. Now there is grass

leaning wind clear to the corner, and

I have learned to expect less.

 

All the floors of my first farmhouse

have fallen in; cars park in

my wedding home; last year the fishing

cabin was torn down….

 

Tonight while wind strains hard

at the shutters, I think

of Widow Bonham and, carpenter of mind,

rebuild my castles board

by board, and brick by brick,

and stone by stone.

-- Imogene Bolls poetry, submitted by RiverSoul

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