A Home of Their Own

A red foreclosure sign juts out from the lawn

The bank said you must leave with breaking dawn

Next to the door sits your leather suitcase

Through a mental checklist your mind begins to race

As you start up the stairs you notice the pink in blue scrawls

Slithering across the living room walls

Your four old daughter had smiled and said with longing in her heart

That one day she wanted she wanted to make art

Peering in to her empty room

As silent as a tomb

You remember the night that the love of first boyfriend

Had come to a bitter end

You stroked her downy black hair, as she sobbed it wasn't fair

You remind her many boys would come in between

After all, she was just fourteen

You glance out the window at the gravel path

Where you can still hear the ghosts of your children laugh

As they climbed up the big oak tree

Hoping to get as high as birds soaring free

You wander to your son's room

As silent as a tomb

You remember when your son's heavy metal band Death's Sword

Plucked its very first cord

He said that name would day grace the Rock and Rock hall of fame

You remember the day when he left the band

Wanting to build things with his own hand

Standing on the bottom stair you see the old wooden chair

Where each child, with trembling hands, had discovered fate there

Each had learned that their knowledge

Was worth molding behind the doors of a college

You stare at the old cordless phone and can hear its ghostly ring

When your daughter had cried with joy

As she told you she was the mother of a baby boy

You pictured your grandson

Climbing up the tree as they done

You wander out the door, knowing this place is not a home anymore

You walk past your wife's abandoned patch of flowers

Where she lovingly tended to them for hours

Now the only thing growing was the red sign

As ugly as a jungle vine

You realize the building that had stood

Was not just a suture of shingles and wood

It was a witness to all the times you fret and those nights you'd never forget

You know it was a home

You hope the next family can make it their own