I am searching for a small house, old

But solid, still strong, tested by storms

And sun and time; some place perhaps

A few years forgotten, settling comfortably

Into its neglect, waiting for someone like me.

Were I Jeffers, I would build it myself; shape

Each stone, set it and true it, one by one,

Crafting a cottage like a poem, line by line. 

But now I have too few years left for that.

A small house: bedroom for one, fireplace

With hearth and lintel of old smoky stone,

Fires and winters beyond any counting.

Near the door a rusty old pump and well,

Taste and tang of earth in cold spring water.

And land, three or four acres will be enough,

If several are meadow and others old trees,

Fir and alder, hickory and oak for cordwood.

Ground enough for a garden, small orchard;

And a meandering stream, grassy pasture

And a barn, tin roof and swallows, a last

Place for the old mare living out our years.

Time enough, and space enough, in the end,

For one stone, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.