- In Tribute to Robert Frost’s Death of a Hired Man
- by Rosalie Raynor
- Home is the place where when you have to go home
- They have to take you in, they said
- Explaining to Silas as he softly slipped asleep
- Where covers warm and lilac meets streets of dreams
- And happy laughter crowds out jeers.
- Home is the mirror where all are young and gay
- And love’s bright promise never dies
- Home bars the door to dark clouded days and waking nights
- And bread-dropped paths that find you coming when you want to go
- And Silas can safely stretch out his weary limbs and forget
- The silly sentences he spoke
- Forget the fouled, failed dreams that broke his back
- And be calm and peaceful in his sleep and know that being
- Foolish was not such a bad thing
- That being old and useless is no false coin, as family is as family does.
- Yes Silas can come home to those he knows will take him in
- No questions asked, no explanation given
- Yes Silas can come and not look for grander, greater things to do,
- And forget those words he’d planned to say but couldn’t, and promise work
- He knows he will never, never do.
- Yes Silas can come home.