I will tell you
What it was like
To rise, like the phoenix
From the ashes of the still-smoldering embers,
Of the house that I was born in.
What I cannot tell you
Is how that house came to be,
That birthed the plagues it did
From one generation to the next.
Only that sorrow was twin to despair
That etched themselves onto the faces of the living.
I moved from that house
To one built in hell.
Walls lined with pain and hate
Of my soul which longed to rise
Above it all and soar
High, like the phoenix.
Almost twenty years have come and gone,
My house is built now
On firmer ground, the walls and rooms
Have known and know love still.
And yet the images of those earlier houses remain,
The memories raw and naked, still etched with pain.
from 'Parables and Voices'
copyright Paula M. De Angelis
