The House

Stone cannot see, but stone absorbs
and changes through the chemical reaction
with water, air, people
So I who am stone have changed as you have changed.

My infancy was Church Latin and chain mail,
when you shared me with the animals
Now, after a thousand years, you share me with machines
Sheep, goats, hens and hawks
all give way to electric points.

I was gentrified in Georgian times,
my ribcage splinted with oak beams,
the timber taken from ships,
so I grew used to the taste of sea salt.

When you grew tired of water from the well,
you invaded me with cast iron pipes
so rivers flowed through my new arteries,
full of peat and red worms.

One of you to win back his wife
turned my cowshed and loft
into kitchen and bathroom to no avail.
A good house is the setting for love but not its source.

It is hard to know surgery from assault.
When a Heinkel exploded in the field above
it tore my roof with fuselage and bullets.
And when you new-lined my chimney
you took away twelve barrowloads
of soot and jackdaw nests
that I had grown fond of.

Where do you end and I begin?
When clawfoot bath gives way to jacuzzi,
outside squatters to inside flush,
turf and heather thatch to slate and insulation,
herringbone stone to brick and plasterboard,
then I will be changed and so will you.

Humans see and humans absorb
and change through chemical reaction
with water, air and stone.
But you and I shall not be fossilised.