The Art of Home

Rain outside,

Schubert within —

the old man taps his toes

as if in rapture

though I don’t know

what he really hears

We have a cozy place —

we’ve made it out of walls and paint

and music, heat, and light,

and presence and kindness

We are teaching ourselves

the art of home —

how to design the spaces,

how to build them,

how to provide

for all the flows we want to come through

We built this house

with hope and imagination.

Our young family emerged

and flowed through it, 

filling some spaces, not using others

in the way we had imagined,

moving on, leaving behind

the cavities its movement carved,

the flotsam from its ebbing presence

We are teaching ourselves

what to take with us, what to let go,

how to make a house that fits how we live,

how to live so that our home

grows up around us in support.

©Wendy Mulhern

November 5, 2016