A House Named Gratitude

We didn't name it of course,
Too silly, sentimental,
In that neighborhood of trimmed hedges,
Defining borders, allotted space.

Enclosures, really,
Those houses of one's youth,
Providing angles for the living out
Of English days.

Tea on Sunday afternoons,
Was roast beef sandwiches,
Tinned peaches, evaporated milk,
Daphne du Maurier in black and white TV,
And outside, the soft, falling, Sunday rain.

Through the blue velvet of the curtains,
The shining, wet windows,
The standard lawn and shrubbery, comforted our gaze, giving way
To the ramshackle summer house which stood in ancient glory
Behind the raspberry canes and before the orchards,
Plum, apple, and pear, twisted and bare uplifted arms.

Summer meant abundance,
Picking, preserving, baking, and making raspberry jam.
My mother, was bothered,
By the old man who would stand at the foot of the stairs,
As if he still lived there, as if he still lived.

I never felt him there.
I felt only gratitude for the garden,
For this house,
And its name, given by the old man.