There is a grand house down the way. It’s on a corner lot of tree-lined streets. It sits quite a distance from the road with an wrought iron fence guarding its expansive yard. The outside is covered in gray stones and warm red wood tiles. The backyard is filled with bamboo. A wall has been replaced with a good size organ in a back room. The pipes reflecting the shape of the bamboo.
A walkway beckons you to the porch but the broken window panes caution you. Recently, someone has decided to give this forgotten warmth another life. Men have pulled up in trucks and brought ladders. They’ve ripped out its broken parts and replaced them with new.
Today a car lingered for several minutes on the street by the driveway. The occupants seeming to have a familiarity of the home but not a possession. It drove away only to circle back around and pass by one more time. In the passenger seat was a man in his 80s and behind him a woman in her 50s. She strained her neck to get one final long look at the place. Her eyes were filled with a sad kind of wonder.
She didn’t even see me inches away on the corner. She was lost in that yard. She was skipping up that sidewalk with newspaper in hand. She was playing the organ with the family gathered around. She was planting those first shoots of bamboo with her father. The old man looked forward. Straight. Stiff. Unmoving or moved too much. It’s hard to say.