House of Many Rooms

My house has many rooms
I lock or unlock at will
Some brick-walled
Fortressed, forbidding
Others with swinging doors
Where I wraithlike slither
From room to room
In the order of the moon's
Waxing and waning
Or shuttle in reverse
In the surreal fashion of dreams
Or flit from end to end
Edge to center and back again
Godlike, omnipresent
In every which corner
Of my house of many rooms.

My house has a charmed chamber
A treasure trove
Of mysterious joys
Of things old
And half-forgotten
That I visit often
When the rains pour
And joints grow cold
And eyes mist with tears
Of remembering and forgetting.
The sun ever shines
Brooks gurgle
Birds twitter
Embers smolder
In that charmed chamber
In my house of many rooms.

You
have this charmed place too
In your house of many rooms
However far you've gone
In whatever clime.

Soon we will meet again
In the chamber of a million charms
Where we all began
And to which we will come back
To know each other
For the first time.

Photo: “The mysterious Door” by , c/o Flickr. Some Rights Reserved

(Written on the occasion of the 50th year anniversary of our high school graduation)