They’ re waiting to be murdered,
Or evicted. Soon
They expect to have nothing to eat.
In the meantime, they sit.

A violent pain is coming, they think.
It will start in the heart
And climb into the mouth.
They’ ll be carried off in stretchers, howling.

Tonight they watch the window
Without exchanging a word.
It has rained, and now it looks
Like it’ s going to snow a little.

Year after year after year
I have come to love slowly

how old houses hold themselves —

before November’ s drizzled rain
or the refreshing light of June —

as if they have all come to agree
that, in time, the days are no longer
a matter of suffering or rejoicing.

I have come to love
how they take on the color of rain or sun
as they go on keeping their vigil

without need of a sign, awaiting nothing

more than the birds that sing from the eaves,
the seizing cold that sounds the rafters.

Old King Cole was a merry old soul
And a merry old soul was he;
He called for his pipe, and he called for his bowl
And he called for his fiddlers three.
Every fiddler he had a fiddle,
And a very fine fiddle had he;
Oh there's none so rare, as can compare
With King Cole and his fiddlers three.

Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O,
And on that farm he had some cows, E-I-E-I-O,
With a ‘moo moo‛ here and a ‘moo moo‛ there,
Here a ‘moo‛, there a ‘moo‛, everywhere a ‘moo moo‛,
Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O.