A Poem for a Thursday #90

Robert Cording has published eight collections of poetry and taught for thirty-eight years at Holy Cross College. He has received honors including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, and the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference.  He lives not too far from me in Woodstock, CT.

Year after year after year
I have come to love slowly


how old houses hold themselves-


before November’s drizzled rain
or the refreshing light of June-


as if they have all come to agree
that, in time, the days are no longer
a matter of suffering or rejoicing.


I have come to love
how they take on the color of the rain or sun
as they go on keeping their vigil


without need of a sign, awaiting nothing


more than the birds that sing from the eaves,
the seizing cold that sounds the rafters. 


Old Houses
Robert Cording