The House Is Quiet

Time is big in this tired house.
Carpenters of another age
hold their hammers ready
for the just last nail.

Not in oneself, or one's mind:
but in each door,
each stick of lumber that has bowed
and sagged into place.

You sit as I, and believe
the roof will not cave in,
no walls will fall around us.

The old big sounds, the settlings,
become the house,
create a reverence.

We live in the silence that remains.