Going On, The Homer Noble Farm

No one’s blaming you for wanting to be
alone with your friends, away from the world,
for wanting to be inside, warmer, in a house

with bedrooms, when it was winter outside
and there was no place to lie down.
No one’s saying, even, you shouldn’t have

wanted to forget the world for a while,
that’s what a few beers can almost do,
that you shouldn’t want to feel the spirit

of an empty house, whose ghost was a poet
and a local dragon. Frost glitters on
the windows and between the walls,

in a name you know because you grew up
here within range of Frost Mountain,
even if you didn’t know its name.

It’s not important I know your name.
I would guess you feel sorry for what
was broken inside that house when

things got out of hand. Frost never blamed
the stars when he couldn’t sleep, when
he spent the night walking the dirt road

between that farm house you know
and the main road below.
I can tell you things I did, I was forgiven for,

I haven’t forgotten. I haven’t told you
yet, I had a chance to sleep in a bed
inside that house once. It was almost

happenstance. It’s likely you might see me
next fall walking the road back to his
Homer Noble Farm. I hope you do
and that we’ll stop, for a moment,
and say hello, with our names, before either
of us has to go on.