Saturday, June 15, 2024

Yellow Cottage, Part 2

I have a dear friend who I met in my Creative Writing class my freshman year in college.  I sent the poem to her for her comments and edits because I knew she would make it better, and she did! Most of her adult life after college, she was an editor.  Not that it matters, but she knows this cottage that I write about, and the man who lived with me in it.

The Yellow Cottage

Nestled between two imposing stories,

Squat, hunkered down,

Protected by a white picket fence,

Two blocks from the deep blue bay,

Where sea lions bark and gulls squawk,

And the foghorn sounds.


I stood outside the fence,

Camera raised and clicking,

Trying to capture a time 

When I entered, with groceries and textbooks,

To find comfort on the couch.

My love and I lived within these cottage walls --

    one bedroom,

    a serviceable kitchen,

    no laundry.


The years to come, just a dream --

Two hapless youths on our way.

Hope lived within us.


I stand before the cottage, decades on,

And he is gone, far too young.

I wonder at the life within those walls,

And yearn, once more, to enter that space

and absorb whatever energy and insight

The yellow cottage has to give.


Țară Crowley, 2024


Heaven's Coffee Shop

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