Life After People

Someone once lit the fire

In this house to warm the room

that held the first morning

That first cold morning of fall

Too cold even for socked feet

To shuffle around in the dim light

yearning for that first cup of coffee

Someone once made the coffee

On the iron stove of this house

To warm the hearts that held the hope

The fractured hope of tomorrows

coming winter,

soon too frozen to work the land

soon too fragile to work the land

the land that once

gathered the generations,

Who harvested the apples,

Who fished from the sea,

Who raked the leaves,

Who planted the bulbs

Someone once loved this house

Tending the hearth open to all

All of Life’s possibilities, I feel—

their hope,

their love,

their dreams

In the faces of the daffodils

Climbing the rocky wall every spring

I feel the Life after People