Dim and yellow lamplight
Illuminates the wrinkled faces
Sitting in chairs gathered 'round
The glowing stories
And laughter echoes off the walls
There were once as young as I
I, in my chair pulled back from the circle
My hands clasped, my mouth silent
My ears attentive, my heart sighing
My eyes moist
The stories take us back a few years
And my brother, younger still,
Reclines upon the floor —
It'll be many years before he is
In one of those chairs
And I, in between, I alone can
Grasp the breadth of the span of years
Seeing both sides
While outside the brooding envelope of
Storm skittering about
A flash of sky, a rumble of foreboding
The wind that wraps the house
On the hill
In the country
Far from anywhere