I Can't Hear These Walls (POEM)

I bought this house.
Worked my life to achieve a goal as this.
A desk set against a wall
Curtains to block the morning mist.

A boy stares at me,
Dressed in his grey coat.
Rifle in his hand, watching.
I set my computer up.
He disappears.

Set the bed against that wall
The dresser over there.
A girl runs out of the room.
A man dressed in black yells after her.

You can’t see that boy!
I forbid it.
Set my clothes by the dresser
I’ll pack it later.

A glass falls onto the ground
The sunlit kitchen bears no sound.
A woman with an apron
Reaches for the broken cup.
A rag to wash the coffee.

I drag the mattress up the stairs,
As a man in green leaves his father distressed.
He won’t return, his name is now on a wall.
I see potential here for my first real home.

A mother cries over the slumped body of her child
As I set my towels over the shower rod
Her tears run dry as the outdated medics save her boy.
I set my toothbrush into its slot.

I’ll need a TV, to the store tomorrow.
Set my bookcase there against the wall.
A mother’s sorrow for her son,
The army men leave this porch.

Standing on the porch as the boy in grey walks away
A girl runs into the woods, her dad in pursuit.
I sit on the stairs next to a housewife in distress.
A father leaning over the railing,
With paramedics loading a young man into their vehicle.
All these apparitions not seen by me.

This house is peaceful
Even as the army leaves a grieving mother.
So much must have happened here.
Too much for me to know
Research can't find all the stories,
That these walls could tell me.

a reply to: TacticalStats
Very nicely done, thank you for sharing this! I feel like this often when I get to visit the places I love. The history is so strong, but at the same time you are building your own associations, and the blending of the two leave me with a wistful mind set.

WOW.
JUST WOW.

Well done! If walls could speak, imagine all the stories they would tell!

Thank you everyone for reading this. It is a popular thought process every time I move into a new home. What has happened here before me?

a reply to: TacticalStats


Ummm...I don't think that's true at all...

I think you really...did...hear those walls...I think you...did...tap into all that had gone prior to you joining them there...
A wonderfully intense vision................Now you need to open yourself to all of the Joy and laughter that no doubt imbues those walls as well...

Thank you for this...absolutely wonderful...

YouSir