Remember

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For Joel & Natalie
A Blessing for Their House

May you live like you’re young in this house that’s older than you,
old as the trees,
old like the bell steeple on Main Street,
and the railroad that runs with the river 
west to the town where Dad was born.

May you not erase the aging lines of this place, 
which are just wrinkles in the landscape:
the ringer,
the brick chimneys,
the black burns from the potbelly,
the wallpaper,

But may you also love it well enough to make it yours, 
as much as stewards are able:
staining the floors,
washing the trim,
shoring the ceilings,
scraping the brick.

May you never strip this house of its history, 
or try to tear it from its place,
or forget you were not the first here,
but that others have laughed down this stairwell,
danced on this porch,
burned meals in this kitchen,
smoked on this stoop over the farmland before it was a high school.

That is to say, may you love its oldness like only young people can,
and in all the ways you already have,
by holding in your minds both what it was
and what it might be,
given the kindness of new plumbing and paint,

Just as God’s people were told to remember how far He’d brought them—
How the oven used to be on the porch,
And Kevin’s scaffold in the kitchen,
And the couch and cabinets in the garage,
And five dozen bats in the chimney—

And how you’ve pieced it back together in a new creation kind of way,
Revising it like a story,
Restoring it like an old watch,
Remodeling it like clay,
Remembering it like it was,
so you could clear the floorplan to see what
He might do.

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