- Gina Douthwaite
- Last Updated: 18 January 2009
The house of seven bedrooms, three flights of stairs, a cellar,
wraps its walls around us, becomes a story teller
and lets the wind alive outside take over as its voice
and rain is punctuation, and thunder`s rumbling noise
rolls over chilling chapters to a night when lightning struck . . .
so listen now as this old house reads its own history book :
" . . . as servants fed the dying fires with arms of fallen oak
that spirited the courtyard in swirls of soulless smoke
a coach clashed on the cobbles, seeking shelter at the inn.
The frenzy of its horses shadowed on white walls within
as travellers huddled to the hearth and chimneys chewed the gale
and on the stair iced draughts of air harmoniously wailed.
Black latches leapt from iron snecks, burst from their rest by blasts
as lightning cracked on old stone walls and shattered leaded glass.
It swept inside in swathes of flame . . . each human life it took . "
so listen now as this old house reads its own history book . . .