The House on Dravus
after William Stafford
After the third, it was what’s next
all that fall. When she started to crawl
and we lost the house and my job it was
what’s next. It was what’s next whenever
we tried to pray or even to say what
had happened or was happening to us,
day by day, in the rain, as always.
Winter came and we slipped down
the steep driveway of the new place:
temporary like everything now—the snow,
the place—while we waited. We waited
in the trees as the wet from our breath
ticked down the single pane windows
not knowing whether they would fall out
or when.
Commentary:
A few years back, our landlord decided to sell the house we had been renting, where we raised our kids, and knew and loved all our neighbors. It was devastating. We had to find somewhere in Seattle that we could afford on my professor salary, and quick. The university had a small house near campus where they let us stay for that final year of my employment at SPU, who was cutting my position. We were grateful for it, but it was small for us, and dirty—things kept on breaking—and it cost more than our old, big house on the hill. Moreover, the race was on for me to find gainful employment for the next year, and all of this while my wife was carrying, and then birthing, our third child. The pressure was insane and no one was thriving. Every application I sent was like an intake of breath. God is faithful, of course, and we came through it, but this poem is about that time.
