Classic Poem

Please don't be superior
To what your parents did
Or make them feel inferior
By laughing at the lid

They laid on top of sticks and stones
To cram a house absurd,
And cornices to keep your bones
From growing up a bird.

No use reminding them of what
Was once a tiny notion
That thought of this and then of that
As safe against all motion.

There's little those two didn't dream
In putting you to bed,
And what there is that's left of them
Is either old or dead.

If you should spy an empty house
That needs a bit of thinking
Go start a noise or two, arouse
Twin echos into clinking.

It's hardly fame you'd gain thereby,
Sheer folly in believing
The wraith of him and her would hie
And hearken to your grieving.

It's that I feel astir in me,
I see the life I had,
And if you can find her in me
You'll know I loved a lad

Who gave me bodies of himself,
Or what I dreamed they'd be:
A boy, a girl (and one dark elf
That died inside of me).

The two that grew were like us two,
They heard the cherubim.
The wind brought hints and whispers blew,
They wed as I wed him.

They found a pin-hole, forced a crack
And pried our house apart,
And left a larger hole, the lack
That cries within my heart.

For where they are, nobody knows,
And where they aren't I —
Each face I search is like a rose
About to fade and die.

The folk who pass look skeptical,
They're sure I'm rather queer,
A foolish old receptacle
Of things no longer near.

A woman waltzing round a stick
May even seem a crone:
A crone who hobbles must be sick —
What else are they who moan?

Although I look that way to them
Don't look that way at me.
I used to be a slender stem
With flowers one could see.

Now all I have is this tin cup
Clinging about the past.
Come drop a coin, don't give me up,
I'll make your future last.