It's Still Life

The House Learns Its Tune

Decades I’ve lived here,
and only now do I hear it

when the wind comes off the sea,
south by southwest,
my house sings.

The gales are no destroyers.
They are fingers
on the roof tiles,
a hand at the chimes.
Each slate, a note.
Each ridge, a phrase held long.

Gusts draw themselves
over the windowsills,
thin lips to a glass mouth,
and the kitchen window
turns flute,
its whistle clean and cold
and strangely glad.

I stand in the hallway,
listening to my house
breathe through its hundred mouths,
and understand at last:

a house is not shelter.
It is instrument.
And the sea,
old, grey, and restless,
has finally learned
how to play it.

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©Misky 2006-2026.