Home

I
This grand old place I have not passed for thirty years today,
since happy, mindless childhood was taken from my play.

Indeed, those walls encased the only joys I've ever known,
I have not been inside for years, but it is still my home.

Home, where I ran laughing, chasing my baby brother,
and tap'd my head on the bannister, then consoled by my loving mother.

And the garden in the back, where I danced amid the flowers,
red and yellow tulips, in morning and evening hours.

The library, where my father pored over one book, then another,
and sometimes peeking in at night saw him embrace my mother.

My governess, I fondly miss, though she rarely gave a smile,
familiar with life's sorrows long before this naive child.

And this grand old place remains the most cherished of all I've seen,
remembering sunlit windows and its stone of serpentine.

II
At ten years old I went off for a week-trip in the fall,
and upon returning I had learned that fever took them all.

Now thirty years have passed, and how proper is this evening;
the air-chill pervading bone - how similar the feeling.

The light is falling down and the night is closing in,
and stand wond'ring why God did not let me go with them.

Indeed, those walls encased the only joys I've ever known,
I have not been inside for years, but it is still my home.

By VALENTINA SAHAKIAN