The House You Built

Park on the lawn, kids, like always Door's unlocked It's been unlocked fifty years The kitchen table's still got the wobble Where every big decision got hashed out loud College and car loans, the year the shop closed — You two would talk it through till the coffee pot ran out And the doorframe's still penciled with our heights Dates in your handwriting, Mom — nobody paints that over, not tonight We came back with kids of our own To the only address that ever felt like home This is the house you built, you two Fifty years of nails and vows holding true Not the boards, not the brick — the thing you grew inside The supper bell, the porch light, the door that never locked us out We're all just rooms in the house you built And it's standing, it's standing, it's standing proud tonight Dad sat the front steps every weekend curfew Acting casual at midnight with his radio low Mom, your Sunday gravy smell could pull us Off the school bus, up the street, three houses down the road You danced in the den when you thought we were sleeping We watched from the stairs — that's where we learned what keeping means Fifty years since the courthouse and the borrowed car Look around this crowded room at what you are This is the house you built, you two Fifty years of nails and vows holding true Not the boards, not the brick — the thing you grew inside The supper bell, the porch light, the door that never locked us out We're all just rooms in the house you built And it's standing, it's standing, it's standing proud tonight Now the grandkids run the hallway New heights going up on the frame Different pencil, same old doorway Fifty years, and it measures love the same This is the house you built, you two Every one of us under this roof is proof of you Not the boards, not the brick — the stubborn, daily yes The supper bell, the porch light, the gravy on the stove We're all just rooms in the house you built So raise 'em up — to fifty years of love Leave the porch light on Like always We'll be back