This Living Room

This living room

groans, creaks, breathes and sighs.

Its timbers, sagged and blackened

by centuries of smoke and upper stories’ burden,       

still spring and flex against the weight and wind;

they reassert a power drawn from sun and soil

in a time beyond recall.

My love, my love in word,

we too have aged and darkened in

the flame that casts its shadows on the beams.

Be still, and look into our origin

through the glow and smoke and crackle of the wood,

sending sparks from hearth to heaven.

My love, my only love,

sit here with me and breathe and sigh.

Let light and warmth recall us to our source,

rekindle what was new when first we loved.

and in this living room

become my love in deed.