Helen Louise Birch

From “Autumn Leaves”

THE HOUSE is still.

The very pictures on the walls have lost their painted meaning.

The place seems new and strangely vacant.

I see the old brown Chinese figure in the panel facing me; he has a look of stupid blankness that is utterly new.

The three big dogs asleep here at my feet—

What cabalistic word will be required to rouse them from their almost deathlike slumbers?

So still—so still the house—

My heart so still.

And I might lift my head and speak and move about and change all this,

But that I know what thing has made it so;

Whose absence the place can feel,

Whose voice is heard no more.

And I think of the great free-sounding melodies that filled the room—

Great silhouettes that passed—

And clear full living tones that live no longer.

This is the lifeless vacuum left by the passage of the storm.