"Cows are my passion. What I have ever sighed for has been to retreat to a farm and live entirely surrounded by cows–and china." Charles Dickens

February 6, 2011

The Old Couch

The old couch, broken––
Don't make them like they used to.
It's not the years, it's the mileage.
Held together by a battleship 
slipcover in the front parlor:
well-kept for tea time and ritual,
of a blue that would not fade. 
Brought from Boston to a perfect village,
for decades it sat watching Main Street,
observing, waiting
for those occasions that brought 
her family into the sanctum.
Then stored in a shed of mice and things:
["The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go oft awry," wrote Robert Burns.]
Once removed in the cold winter sunlight,
brought from New England to Kentucky,
her true age revealed:
a broken back, the skin slack and worn.
The faded trappings of a dowager,
soon to be tossed on a funeral pyre.
Why do I mourn tattered silk and old wood?

© Catherine Seiberling Pond


 You come back when you're ready!

Catherine

1 comment:

Welcome to the farm! I hope you feel free to comment and share here. I will respond as often as I can.