It was our first night in the old West Virginia cabin. <br />It had been built around 1770 and was made entirely <br />from hand-hewn logs and you could still see the <br />deep and shallow chisel marks, the cuts and level lines from the <br />planers and the hammers and the saws that had been used <br />to clear the land and build the modest small cabin by the creek. <br /> <br />But that night, our first night, we had been woken by <br />a soft creaking noise, but as I have 10 cats and 7 dogs, <br />well, noise abounds and crashes are ignored and even <br />breaking glass gets a yawn. But it wasn’t really the creaking <br />that woke me, thinking back, it was the movement. The lights <br />and shadows moving back and forth along the ancient chiseled logs. <br /> <br />Creaking and movement. Not exactly earth-shattering in as critter-ridden <br />a house as mine, but it was entirely too quiet, except for creaking, <br />and the rocking chair was moving. It was moving. It was rocking <br />and rocking and rocking and rocking. The old wicker chair looked to be <br />entirely empty, but the chill shiver up my spine gave evidence <br />that it wasn’t, and there seemed to be a woman there, faintly, maybe. <br /> <br />And then the noise stopped and the rocker crept to a stand still. <br />Weakly I crawled out of bed and inched my way toward the old rocker. <br />Nope, no cats. Damn, a cat or two would have explained a lot. <br />Thinking back, I guess the old woman just wanted to see the folks in her house, <br />to let us know she was there, and in her own quiet way, that she approved. <br />We were all really, really, really glad she did. And we slept well thereafter.<br /><br />Sandra Osborne<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-rocking-chair/
