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They loved the old house, even though
they did not share all its history.
It
had stood for years before they moved in.
A spinster teacher built it in the thirties
(just before the war began)
along
with several others,
meaning to run a children's camp
but never did. Instead,
she rented
out the cabins to summer visitors
who soon bought, and settled in
for
summers far from cities and
the threats of polio.
Another spinster bought this one,
a nurse, who summered there for years;
then, remarkably, made a happy marriage
in her sixties, to a man who loved the
house
as much as she. After they died,
the house was sold.
That is when they
arrived,
to see her parent's purchase,
and fall in love with it:
simple wooden
walls, tiny rooms,
surrounding panoply of birch and pine and lake.
They labored for their love:
sawed and hewed and sewed and bought.
They
raised their children.
Taught them how to fish,
how to love a house.
The day came; they realized
it was too small. Grandchildren coming,
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retirement soon to come.
How could they manage within those wooden walls?
Those
tiny rooms?
They thought of additions,
second stories, moving walls;
but nothing
worked.Plans began:
a new log home
to rise among the pines and birches,
and
gaze upon the lake.
Eventually the old house stood,
pared of all adornments:
curtains, pictures,
windows, doors,
furniture, pieces of wall; it waited,
air-shrouded and laid out
for death.
A man arrived with a monstrous companion,
a giant backhoe,
power-armed.
Before he went to work, the man
went in to check the house,
just in
case.
He came out carrying a bouquet,
lovely fresh flowers
tied with a ribbon.
Here, he said;
You left this. Don't you want it?
No, no, she said. That stays.
It was for the house, to honor
it, its long history. She wept.
He took it back
inside.
The huge machine
reached out its toothy arm,
chewed the house into
matchsticks,
and spat it into trucks
that carried it away.
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