A Departure

by Thomas Banks (July 2026)

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This house, where fameless lives accumulated,
To you now, as to us once, is entrusted.
From our unlikely furrowed hands accept
The keys which in our wardship have not rusted.
.
We were not born when its foundations were
By former makers laid whose monument
Lives in the founding stones. They did not sign
The labor over which their lives were spent.
.
No more did we; for what we brought to this
Secluded task was not our usefulness
Or strength or gift: it only was the will
To be of use beneath the wear and stress
.
Of years that did not ask us what we wished.
It may be that in us, like ghosts returning,
Our forbears keep their station still. Enough;
We take our leave, leaving the light still burning.
.

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Thomas Banks teaches online at the House of Humane Letters. His writing has appeared in First Things, Quadrant, European Conservative, North American Anglican, American Spectator and elsewhere. He lives in North Carolina.

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