A Paper Anniversary at 52

And now you sleep in the bed left over

from your first marriage, tucked

into the only room of this old farmhouse

that's warm when the wind comes

from the north.

These walls are paper thin & mice live

within them and bigger things in the attic

where I have yet to go.

There are children of ours somewhere in the world

older than we were at our first unions.

The lake is almost dry from the drought

and the old garden is nothing but weeds

and the rock walls are falling down

and the barn is red from rust more than paint.

And we gave it all up for this:

that bluebirds will find the box you helped me

nail to the fencepost across the field from

the kitchen window;

that the martins will nest in the house atop

the pole you held as I hoisted all the way up;

that the thistles will be fewer next spring

now that we have wrestled so many out of the ground;

that another year like another season

will never be enough

until it is over.