Build me a house of memories
Where I may live;
If not happily,
Then at least ever after.

Paint my bedroom with the shadows
Of a cool summer twilight.
Let me read by a lamp
Filled with the friendly light
Of the moon’s beams.
Quilt me a comforter of green leaves,
Soft and familiar.
Carpet the floor with the blues and greens
Of soft moss growing quietly
On smooth rocks by content streams.
Lace the air lightly
With the aroma of strawberries,
To help me sleep at night.

Give my living room the colors of autumn,
The rubies, the golds, the citrines.
Put in a couch made of
Well-worn cashmere sweaters.
Let my coffee table by formed
Of a carefully molded storm cloud.
Fill the room with the light,
The wavering light of jack ‘o’ lanterns.
The floor should be hardwood,
Cool as a crisp October morning.
Light a candle of burning leaves
To just barely scent the air.

Saturate the kitchen
With the hues of butterfly wings,
Deep roses, gay bluebells, bright tulips.
Light should shine gently
Through windows of hardened morning fog.
The floor should be like grass,
Newly awoken after winter’s coma.
Hang pots from a ceiling
Like a clear spring day,
And store things in cabinets
Of freshly sprouted saplings.
Perfume the air pungently with the smell
Of young, wet, fertile soil.

Finally, dig me a cellar
With walls of a blizzard storm cloud.
Make the floors of black ice,
Frozen by Old Man Winter’s cold hiss.
Bottle my pain and sorrow
In blue glass the color of a frozen kiss;
And shelve them in a cobwebbed corner,
To age bitterly, like some rare wine.
Let the room remain dark
As a moonless January night.
The air will hold the odor
Of things forgotten.
Faint and heartbreaking.

Build me a Home of Memories
Where I may live.
Not happily ever after,
Just where I may live.