The quaint house stood empty for years
looking quite different from its days of splendor.
It’s honey colored paint worn and peeling,
windows broken, shutters missing or hanging askew.
The long forgotten garden overgrown with weeds,
barren of color except for a few scraggly black-eyed-susans
and an entanglement of morning glories choking everything.
It could scarcely be called a flowerbed, except to the new couple
who envisioned its future as a proper English garden
full of rose sprays and bachelor buttons.
This property represented their happy promises
which glossed over the sorrows of neglected years.
They crossed the doorway, the threshold of their lives together
ensnared by glorious romantic ideals and nothing seemed insurmountable.
They twirled arm in arm across the dusty floor
as sunny beams of reflected light danced gaily
in approval upon the faded wallpaper.
The house itself seemed to breathe of new life and hope.