House With Broken Heart

Gopeng

Sungai Siput
Ulu Chemor

The House With Nobody In It

Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track,

I go by poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black,

I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute,

And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.

I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things,

That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings,

I know this house isn't haunted and wish it were, I do

For it wouldn't be so lonely if it has a ghost or two.

This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,

And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass,

It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied,

But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.

If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid,

I'd put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade,

I'd buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be,

And I'd find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.

Now a new house standing empty, with staring window and door,

Looks idle, perhaps and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store ,

But there's nothing mournful about it, it cannot be sad and lone,

For the lack of something within it that it has never known.

But a house that has does what a house should do,

a house that has sheltered life,

That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,

A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling feet,

Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.

So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track,

I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,

Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,

For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.

(J Kilmer)

Gambar rumah-rumah yang sudah tiada berpenghuni lagi yang telah aku ambil dari beberapa tempat. Poems yang mengiringinya walaupun panjang namun ia mengambarkan keadaan yang kita semua akan lalui.

Yang baru akan menjadi lama, yang muda beransur tua, yang riuh akan bertukar sepi dan dalam setiap pertemuan ada perpisahan. Aku teringat dan insaf bahawa suatu hari nanti rumahku juga akan tinggal sunyi.

Benarlah kata orang rumah adalah seperti sarang di mana suatu hari nanti penghuninya akan terbang meninggalkannya kosong untuk berpindah ke alam baqa' atau mencari kehidupan yang baru.