A Vibrant Shabby Home

This body, a crumbling

estate built by generations

of Croatians, Norwegians,

Swedes and Ojibwa ancestors,

is slowly transforming, some

would say ‘falling apart’ :

a swollen profligate prostate,

sometimes foggy brain,

shrinking biceps and seedling

cataracts not yet needing surgery;

but zest and joy are still

to be had dancing in the dusty

courtyard under starlight at midnight,

planting poppies of hope

at the feet of a statue of Venus,

and sitting entranced for hours 

outside with coffee Sunday morning

in the backyard—the vibrato

of hummingbirds sipping

from blossoms above, a solo monarch

brilliant in early light flits from rosebush

to lemon tree to the pines across the road,

and then the star of the show—

a gray bunny who’s recently made this old

place his home and happily nibbles

the lettuce and apples he’s given.

Graced by a beautiful disrepair—

holes in a screen door, weeds

in the garden, a missing plank

in the deck where Nibbles now lives,

there’s wildness here and in the quiet 

at dusk, songs of longing and joy 

can be heard flowing 

from the ancient infrastructures 

woven from bone and blood, stone 

and steel, all that lives here now 

and has lived and left,

those ancestors who worked, rested, 

wandered and wondered,

the ones I now thank

who loved this body 

into vibrant being.