I wrote this poem following a rather sleepless night, last night. This doesn’t happen often, but, for some reason did last night. As I usually do, I plug my headphones into my tablet and listen to the music I have stored on it. The first song I heard was “Our House”, from the 1970 Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young album, Deja Vu. This song, along with the song, “Teach Your Children”, from that album were my favorite songs from that album during the summer of 1970. That album gave the United States some hope during a dark time in American history, a hope we are still desperately needing during these darker times of our present.
OUR HOUSE
A long night of sleeplessness,
a rarity usually for me.
I slip the headphones on,
plug them into my tablet
and tap one of my playlists.
Graham Nash begins to sing
the opening lyric to the song,
“Our House,” a musical
time machine sending me
suddenly back to the summer
of nineteen seventy, riding in
the company pickup truck at
the mall where I worked,
inspecting the fence line,
picking up the litter the
wind blew up against
the fence the night before.
This song comes over the radio,
a song that hold for me
the future I dream for us.
I had proposed marriage to you
earlier, lovingly declined
with college ahead of us,
we had more life
to explore, but I knew
you to be my future.
Patient, but resolute,
my intent to make you
the center of my life forever.
I pondered, as I picked up
the soiled disposable diapers,
“Will we have two cats in the yard?
Will we gaze at the fire for hours
and hours,” as I put the discarded
fast food wrappers and crushed cups,
and, “Really? Used condoms?!”
into the garbage bag. Was
Nash’s dream for Joni Mitchell
our dream, our future happiness?
Probably not. We would have
an idyllic life of our own making.
My co-worker and I throw
our filled trash bags in the
back of the pickup truck.
Though the song ends, and
a new song begins, Graham
Nash’s song lingers in my
consciousness as it still
does this long sleepless night.
You turn toward me in our bed,
(my resolve paid off), as I
ponder: two cats, no, but a dog,
four children, five grandchildren,
in our yard. Flowers from our
garden in a vase. No fire upon
which to gaze for hours, but
a plentitude of love songs I
have composed for you,
over the past forty-nine years.
It’s not quite the list that
Graham Nash dreamed for
an idyllic life with Joni Mitchell,
a life that never materialized.
It was our life together
by which we created
“Our House.” It has always
been you who have made
our house, our home. idyllic.
Your right arm falls across
my chest, this beloved song,
this bucolic future dream
from our past, sounds its
final chord through my
headphones as I drift
off to sleep in “Our House.”
(c) 2019, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
