In Charles Causley’s House
The house was dark, and the man was gone.
We spoke the man’s words
in the quiet rooms
and the words remembered themselves
here
at the scratched writing desk
with its typewriter
and high-backed chair
stone, snow, ghost, stream,
cold, bright air…
and here
at the upright piano
where the man’s fluent fingers
played jazz, rehearsed songs
for the junior choir
Joseph fell a-dreaming
He dreamed of sheaves of grain…
On the piano
an old photograph of the man as a boy
with clear, clever eyes and an innocent smile.
The man and the child - both long gone
from the shadowy bric-a-brac rooms.
But the words spoke the man
and truth of his life was their song.
Annie Fisher
