What We Found Over Breakfast

 

This is the story of March in photographs. You can tell I am hanging on baited breath for the blossoms to appear. We then met at the Clearbrook Library for the Fraser Valley Poets Society reading. The last three photograps were the day of the meeting out front. You can see the beautiful blossom backdrop of the International Friendship Garden in my post on Instagram here. 

I read the poem from the book Hallmark by Emily Isaacson, of the story of how the Smith family house had burned to the ground one night when a vagrant snuck in and caused a fire. The Smith family was my grandparents who lived on Esplanade, and the house on their one million dollar estate in Hemet, California overlooking the San Jacinto Valley was left empty after they died. The poem is told from the perspective of the vagrant, who refers to themselves as a mouse. The title is in reference to Margaret Atwood, aptly called ``What We Found Over Breakfast``in reference to her book  Morning in the Burned House. 

Here is the poem:

What We Found Over Breakfast

By candlelight I pen this solemn note,

to the master and the mistress of this house,

I am no bigger than a field mouse,

but I have sailed upon the seven seas,

and now—what has become of me—

I cannot speak for misery—

It was in a moment of charm

that I accepted the old house with open arms.

This burned-down house—

the morning finds but none too soon—

was charred by my own match;

a fiddler’s tune I played upon the thatch,

your rooftop bearing me, it let me stay,

but now that mournful resonance

is but insoluble dissonance.

If I should run from you

I must confess

that it was I who fell from grace

with just one note—

upon your blackened cinders

grand old house, I stand,

with now an inextinguished hand.

With terror, I would flee

into the night—

I would desist from digging at the site

of one more grave—

the Esplanade—

a place that once was loved

lies in unbeguiling ashes

not caused by anyone excepting me.

A coward, I would bow

to take my strap—

I would stretch out my hand

at curt command

but would the haunting eyes

that looked out o’er the plains

be no more furious distain.

Emily