Nonetheless, a Warm Place to Be

Old brown dresser tagged red with crayon,
impressions of a childhood lived long ago.
A rocking horse rests with a wicker chair--- silent;
memories, like smoke, conduct their faded task.

As flat square carpets connect white stained walls,
a warm blood rush is chased by melancholy.
Thrift store pictures hang beside a forboding closet,
buoyant images now raise themselves, never breaking.

A guitar, mattress, television, a kerosene heater,
my father's alive ghost felt behind old farmhouse walls.
Floorboards heard creaking, feet crunching brown paper,
my finger motions his shadow from a cold worn entrance.

Delighted in sadness, bearing his memory with open arms,
standing in a grassy patch, that was once my childhood home.
Breathing deep, skipping about in between the lost and present,
my heart searches for a commemorating whisper past due.