Island Summer House (poem by Cynthia Ciani Anderson)

Island Summer House (poem by Cynthia Ciani Anderson)

We know the name of the lobsterman
who built the house seventy years ago,
with lumber from Doug Young's mill,
bricks and windows a century old
salvaged from Franklin Island.
He lived there with his wife three summers,
fished, worked at the sardine plant.
The house fourteen by twenty feet,
long axis north-south,
one room up, one room down,
one door west, one door east.
A sixteen-inch square chimney
free-standing like a tree, a bit off-center,
flue thimbles north and south
for parlor and cook stove.
Exposed studs, joists, rafters, collar ties,
aged to a palette of rich browns,
hold nails and hooks for useful objects,
shelves for a small library.
Upstairs, the gambrel roof frame
sits atop a knee wall, like a tent,
or an overturned boat hull,
a Noah's ark, sheltering the beds below.
After twenty years we added skylights,
one on each steep roof side.
Now upstairs and down have
water views and sun on four sides.
I go to sleep, North Star by my side,
watch the sun rise at the mouth of the river
through the window at my feet,
hear the tide rise and fall on the rocks.