The House I Am Standing In

When my grandfather nailed the last tin sheet down

he drove each screw through the raised rib of the metal

so the valley stayed open for water,

channeling it clean off the eave

into the butt below the porch.

Rain knew where to go. He taught it.

🌧️

April again and I am on the steps

hearing what he made receive what always comes,

a tattoo across the pitched and patient tin,

each drop distinct before the whole

becomes a roar that fills the holler

wall to wall, ridge to ridge.

🌧️

He has been fifty-three years gone. His shed

still holds his level, his cold chisels,

a felt hat on a nail above the bench

that no one has moved, and no one will.

His measure pencil worn down to a stub

inside his apron, folded on the shelf.

🌧️

I try to find him in the sound the roof makes,

read the pitch and clatter of it

the way he read a slope,

eye travelling the line until the line

gave up its flaw, its dip,

its secret want of true.

🌧️

April rain comes off Sam's Gap cold and lateral,

strikes the tin my grandfather's screws still hold,

and I am homesick for a house I'm standing in,

the way a sound can make the present

suddenly the past's own country.

What he built, still shedding water.

What returns, still teaching us to bear it.