This is Where I Live

In case you have ever wondered, this is where I live.
A modest house on the edge of a village in Vermont.
Three small bedrooms. Two and a half baths.
Two offices. A large living/dining room
that once was two rooms. It was a duplex
when I bought it almost sixteen years ago.
My first day there I was sledgehammering walls
to make it a single home.

It was a miner’s house. One of many in the town,
all close, but not quite the same.
Across from the front porch is an old slate quarry.
A beautiful place to walk the seasons, full of views,
piles of rock, wildflowers and the occasional birch.
There’s a bat cave on the other side.
Most of the bats have died, but a few survive
and the colony is growing.
Seeing them at dusk makes me smile

It is a small lot. Two-tenths of an acre.
Some of the grass you see in the picture
belongs to my neighbors.
That was perfect when I moved in
sixteen years ago. It was a different life then
and I traveled. Having a yard you could cut
with scissors had it’s appeal.
Today, I wish I had a bit more.

It was not my dream home.
I had one of those. Or at least believed I did.
A rambling true Colonial Farmhouse
with VIctorian add ons. Land.
A good place to raise kids.
A place apart. A place to build dreams
that did not come true. In fact, dreams
that coming undone, nearly did me in.

No, this was not meant to be a dream home.
It was just a place to live. To heal.
Peaceful rooms. Peaceful places to walk.
Stones and paths and creeks. All close.
No, this was not meant to be my dream home.

Proving of course I am not the best judge of dreams.
So many of mine have come undone. Leaving me here.
Where my children came back to me and learned
to be themselves in a safe place. Where they launched
from. This small house in this small village
is where I healed. Traded in one life for something
more like me than I believed possible.
This is where I married, and found love after all.
I survived cancer here. I changed at a pace
my heart could survive.

In 2,200 square feet. Still a place of peace and light.
It turned out to be my dream home after all.
Just what I needed. Just enough space,
split up just right for the life I really was to have,
not the one I imagined.

So, this is where I live. As I write poems. As I study.
As I read in the evenings and dream of love never ending.
As I sit on the porch and daydream, the sweetest dreams
that may or may never come true. But sweet, nonetheless.

About this poem

You probably have never wondered where I live, but I was looking for another photograph and found this one of my house, taken from the quarry across the street, and decided to write a poem to the picture. Autobiographical.

Tom