The Organic Architect

Nobody really dug the first shovel load.
The house just grew,
adding rooms to room
new voices, toddlers turning teenage
in the blink of an eye.

Adding new wings to house
the once roaming.
Her mother, his sister,
and the one who had loved them both
and kept buying roses
like a gentleman should.

From cottage to village,
garage, patio, playground,
sprouted from the stem
in the span it takes
to grow a giant,

and acorns on the outer limbs
fell off, one by one.
Some into soil, to sprout
in cities near and countries far
and always, almost always,
coming back for Christmas.

Others into dirt, to rest there,
leaving chairs empty.

Nobody ever held blueprints
and bold ideas.
The house just grew
to what it ought to be.
Until now, when a cottage that grew
into a castle can’t unbuild itself,
can’t unhammer nails,
or unraise walls.

Inhaling photographs
and counting the days that went,
he and she rest at the heart
of the monument they planted.

Cradled by contour,
the beams and tiles of a story
no calculated construction
could ever tell.