Going Home

Minnie's house is strangely quiet now. The rooms used to echo with the shouts of her five children welcoming their father home from a week's work in Schenectady, and with piano and violin music  --  perhaps Minnie herself pounding out "The Midnight Fire Alarm."

All is silent inside the house now, but outside, a mockingbird is singing in the magnolia tree, a robin calls to its mate, a catbird mimics a feline neighbor, and in the distance, traffic thrums dully on the highway near the river.

The air is still and moist; the garden is a luxuriant green as berries and blooms continue their silent burgeoning.

Now a cardinal warbles and a freight train warns of its passing; the whistle blows two long, one short, another long toot, on the tracks along the river.

It is Memorial Day, and leaving for home, we stop at the cemetery to place flowers on the family plot.