This small house fitted him like some square shell <br />Weathered and worn, as if it somehow bore <br />His very likeness, but no smoke thread mounts; <br />He will not stand in greeting at the door <br />As he stood, gaunt and smiling, three days back. <br />He has no need now of the wood he piled; <br />The water pail and dipper, the small store <br />Of china on the shelf; the rocker there. <br />The bed-quilt will not warm him any more <br />On northeast nights. Birds that he fed still flock <br />Fearless and singing round about his door. <br />He will not see the sweet wild raspberries grow <br />Rosy as rubies, bright above the shore; <br />He will not dig his brown potato hills; <br />Or gather apples, spicy at the core. <br />The peas he planted hang in long green pods <br />Ripe for his picking now, and here a score <br />Of yellow squashes fatten in the sun. <br />Others will bear them all away before <br />Frost comes . . . O, ancient Psalmist, well you knew: <br />The place thereof shall know him now no more.<br /><br />Rachel Lyman Field<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/and-the-place-thereof/
