Between my first home,
and my second home,
miles of cornfield, soybeans,
years growing together,
silver maple trees,
short lived and brash,
abandoned houses.
To wile away my boredom
traveling from one to the other,
I counted thirty churches.
A cross here, a tabernacle there,
for God, for Jesus,
for God knows what,
for psalmists,
for the loneliness of life,
for the ghettos of civilization.
For the few years we live,
none counted the same.
Each year a house of sorts,
warmth and sadness.
Houses clustered together
to make villages.
In some of us,
sizeable manses
built to our dimensions.
Big, small, pretentious,
grass huts,
where we live.
None the same,
year to year.
They have their porches,
open windows,
gardens and weeds.
Like faces with acceptance
and denial in them.
Painted and repaired
or barren and ignored.