Second Place Winner!

Old Houses by Marit Faugstad

What memories do long-lived houses hold?

Each fallen beam, each dripping, sagging eave

Remembers vibrant years long gone, and grieves

Upon the rotting boards, the choking vines, the mold.

What passing ages did the glass behold?

What sounds once filled the nooks, where now the leaves

Are heaped? The windows still cannot conceive

How children with their smudging hands grew old.

While learned scholars study history,

Old houses witness centuries of life,

The sense of which a book could never sow.

How deep must be a house’s memory

To harbor in its heart the joys, the strifes

That we in distant years will never know!