The Radley House
A Freedom Poem
The flapping of my shudders creak in the wind,
The boy grew up inside me and in here he remains,
To all the rusty cutlery and brown coffee stains,
My poor master's boy wakes up before his family has risen,
But you'd be paranoid too if I was your prison,
I am sinking very slowly and through the years the family changed,
From the time the boy stabbed his mother in the leg
When he was quite deranged,
His father dead,
I still dread,
That Arthur will not see the open fields and smell the fresh air of Maycomb,
Only his brother and mother for company,
The boy they call Boo,
Too horrid of appearance the gossip is shaped,
Guessing what the locked up Radley looks like when their view is draped,
Boo still sits in his chair with his thoughts and dreams,
With clothes that are tattered at the seams,
I watch the Finch children and their friend,
Playing an act that will soon end,
Scout's parent disapprove of the play,
She and Jem go back in for the day,
The summer sun sets in the sky,
What wonderful sight with gleaming eyes,
Though I have no eyes to see,
But crumbling walls and a chimney.