If I Could Build a House (A Poem for Bailey)

If I could build a house

where pain couldn’t root

where disease couldn’t grow

where separation had no strength,

I would.

I would build it for you.

The roof would be firm in the storms

The walls would keep your body safe

The doors would say to pain,

“You are not welcome here.”

In the garden, togetherness would grow

and it would not stop

It would cover the house like ivy

It would fill the space between us

like a fragrance

like the glow of a candle

We would pick the togetherness like berries

We would serve it at our table

in big heaping bowls

We would store the extras in our cabinets

and it would spill out 

everywhere. Everywhere.

With berry-stained hands, 

we would laugh over the lovely mess

together. Together.

But togetherness doesn’t grow like that,

not here.

Here we are apart.

Here my tools are faulty

Here my materials too weak

I would build it for you,

but I cannot.

Here tornados rip off roofs like a lid

Here doors can’t keep out the pain and the hate

Here cancer grows where it was not planted

where it is not welcome

Here it takes what it was never given

And eats of the berries we so carefully collected

And smashes the space between us

This is not the house I would make for you.

If I could build another, I would

And yet, among these cracks and leaks

and these rusted hinges,

despite all the weak,

I notice something about our feet:

They are standing on something

strong.

I stomp and feel it firm beneath

Something built with hands not ours,

with tools not ours

Something built by Someone 

who would build it

and could build it.

Someone who did not shut out pain

but welcomed it in,

who said to the winds and the disease

to the sin and the shame:

Come in my house instead.

Someone who surrendered his body

who gave up his home

who withheld not one cell

from the destruction we fear

And then from the ashy heap

he constructed this thing under our feet

and despite all the shaking

it hasn’t moved an inch.

Somehow in all the dying

the soil is still rich.

Somehow in all the separation

I can spot togetherness that grows

and cannot stop.

Darling, while much is lost 

and much has been endured,

stomp and feel it firm beneath:

The foundation is unchanged.

No matter how our house shakes,

Nothing can stop this sprout of hope:

Of another home that our Builder is making

He is placing its foundation

In a place with no storms

Where you’ll be perfectly safe

Where pain cannot come

because it does not know the way

A place with a garden where togetherness grows

and it cannot stop

It will cover the house like ivy

It will fill the space between us

like a fragrance

like the glow of a candle

In that house, one day,

we will pick the togetherness like berries

We will serve it at our table

in big heaping bowls

We will store the extras in our cabinets

and it will spill out

everywhere. Everywhere.

With berry-stained hands, 

we will laugh over the lovely mess

together. Together.

And our Builder will be there with us

(after all, it’s his feast)

and we’ll look at him in awe, saying, 

“We can’t believe you made this!

We can’t believe you made space for us!”

He’ll stretch out his hands,

stained with blood and with berries,

draw us in close

and never let go.

Not ever. Not ever.

—

For Bailey.