The Sound of Houses

As I come near I seem to catch the sound
    of people's houses, resonant, profound.
Some almost silent giving deep slow chords
    long harmonies with deep peace afterwards.

Tracy's cottage of laths, horsehair and lime
    chatters with chains, ghosts from another time,
and her cousins' house is dissonant with hate
    as house and family disintegrate;
other unhappy homes with little cheer
    give out high frequencies only bats can hear.

Dear Jill lives messily, some say a slum
    but her house sounds sharp and crisp, taut as a drum
while Cyril's speaks anguish, twisting squeaks and strains
    like a troubled teacher racking furrowed brains;
old Fred's just rustles, like reeds beside a lake,
    full of high thought, high speech and dry seed cake.

But yours has deep silence, oblivious to all wrongs
    alive under laughter, jokes and reckless puns
sings in my ear with tam-tams, castanets, gongs
    rude noises, small bird's songs and gamelans.

John Ringrose

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