A while back, I got a copy of Reutter's new book, Carvings, in the mail. I opened it by chance to poem called "Just a House," which I rater liked. Here it is, reprinted with the author's permission:
Just a House
I checked out your home today --
the park in the hollow,
ball field on the loop
and house just off Larkspur.
Appearances seem the same, but
the gnomes are gone
as are the azalea beds over which
they once stood guard. No one
works in the yard, no dog
runs along the fence line.
Now, it is just a house in a section
of a development that someone
else calls home.
My eyes close
I see the two of you
as I arrive -- knowing
home is memories of you, I carry.
I found this rather moving, no doubt because it aroused in my mind and heart memories of my own. I'm presuming Larkspur is Larkspur street in northeast Philly. I like the poem's simplcity. It brings to mind something songwriter Jule Styne once said: "It’s easy to be clever. But the really clever thing is to be simple."
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