The House of Souls

 

The abode on the lake

Has housed many souls

From my lineage and anew

And survived many fates.

 

Dad, Earle of the manor,

An only child, his own best friend,

Took to adventures on the sandy beach of Lake Michigan,

His playground for swimming and skating.

 

Nature can be a foe and muster legends, as

The winter snow almost ate him when

He stumbled into a hole and was buried up to the neck, no siblings for his rescue.

And another boy wearing Dad’s skates fell through the ice.

 

Our pilgrimages there to see the sages,

Our faces burned by whiskers

After Granddad arrived home from the bank.

He built the house; it was also a Harris.

 

Our tummies filled with cherry pie

At the little round kid table by the nook.

Grandma Hattie’s apron and her

Kind, dark, deep-set eyes.

 

Our games and play for hours

On the sandy beach with the sun bearing down

To make blisters so big that

Bandages became our body armor.

 

Still, Sweet Grandma would hug so hard

The blisters would break open,

Soothed only by time and more cherry pie.

Lessons unlearned as we raced back to the shore.

 

Years passed with generations gone.

We moved there with Mom, for Dad went away to school.

How she survived is a testament to her resolve

As the Handmaid, the Mother, and the Queen.

 

This was our adventure, owning the castle.

Seven kids loving mischief,

Feeding Mom’s jewelry down the heating vent, and

Spreading around a bag of flour before the guests arrived.

 

Once the house almost died

As lightning struck it while Mom was away,

Having trusted the house and nature

To guard the seven treasures.

 

The house was hungry in the winter

Fed by coal delivered to the creepy bin in the basement.

How the house shook like a mighty beast when fed,

Satiated and ready for slumber.

 

Once I found Mom by the furnace.

How she looked wed to the fire.

Her eyes were blazing as she stoked the coals

And turned to glare at me. Of course, I ran.

 

The Lake had receded, so that year,

We only had waves of grass as our shore.

But the garage still had Granddad’s tools as toys,

And we could still smell him there.

 

This house was Dad’s soul and anchor,

Our refuge on vacations,

Our residence in a life transition.

I still hang my curtains the same way now,

 

Though I really can’t linger there

As was shown in a dream.

I saw myself as a young girl on the shore,

Dad and his parents inside at the nook.

 

Follow us, they said, leading me to the water’s edge

Though I feared the water and dared not venture too deep,

I followed and we became as frogs

Twisting with the current and swimming on the lake bottom.

 

Out we came to new ground

And I was made to walk on hot coals.

How I blazed on this path,

Glistening into my new fine diamond body

 

Until reborn into the Now.

For the past is but a house of memories

That cannot survive present winds or future travail.

And now the house that once held our souls has new occupants.

 

Copyright © August 11, 2017 Barbara Harris Leonhard

Image: Our House of Souls, which we had on Lake Michigan in Escanaba, Michigan