A sepia tinted house

As I stroll down the concrete road,
Sheltered from heat; blazing like fire sparks
By a canopy of trees clothed in leaf and bark
My mind meanders, waiting to explode.

For long have I watched, long have I wondered
Who dwelled in that sepia tinted house
How long have I gazed, how long have I pondered
Before the gates that are ever closed.

Ivy clinging to the grey wall
Green here, grey there
Spring, summer and fall,
Never any smoke rising into the air.

Part of me knew it was uninhabited
Part of me thought not
For when curiously I peered
Through the opening in the window

I saw the house
For what it truly was-
A reminder of my grandfather
When I glimpsed the books bound in leather.

I had seen them earlier
They had somehow stayed with me, within me
As his memory has; now made clearer
For I now know he is always with me.

I’d always seen him in his room
Book in hand, nose in book
Not a trace of  boredom or gloom
When he was in his nook.

Yes, he lived in a sepia tinted home,
A home, not a house
Which is why I have grown
To know who lives in that sepia tinted house.

It is the memory of my grandfather,
Not a person, not a notion
But a belief and a memory
One to cherish forever.