Our Old Family Home

A home protects us with its walls
And keeps us warm when winter falls
But most of all it’s filled with love
That God has given us from above.

Our old family home protected life
And put its wooden arms around a man and wife.
It has echoed a child’s laugh and its stumbling feet
And comforted the family with its retreat.

Throughout the years it helped to raise,
Twelve children who recall the days
Their parents taught them right from wrong
The Ten Commandments and hymns of song.

These lessons were given under one roof
To lead us on the path of truth
To give us all the hopes and dreams
That a life of happiness gleams

We all have fought in our own despair
But in our home we received the care
For a mother’s love is soft and kind
And a father’s gentleness is hard to find.

We all will miss our childhood place
For memories fill each room and space.
But the home is not only where memories are tied,
It is mostly the people living inside.

By Wilma van Oort

My Favorite Poem

The House with Nobody in It

Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.

I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.

This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,
And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.
It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied;
But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.

If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid
I'd put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.
I'd buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be
And I'd find some people who wanted a home and give it to them for free.

Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door,
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store.
But there's nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sade and lone
For the lack of something within it that it has never known.

But a house that has done what houses should do,
a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone, that every your eyes could meet.

So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,
For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.

by Joyce Kilmer