An Ode to a Cook Stove

Pause gentle stranger, and stay a spell.
Imagine the story I have to tell.

You see my door, and note its name.
And wonder if it is one of fame.
The richness here is what I've baked,
And the happy people who sat and ate.
For I was a part of a hundred lives.
Ten thousand times,
I worked for them, and heard their sighs.
A life begins, another dies.

They are the people you now call old.
For them I strived to break the cold.
I cooked their meals
And warmed their night.
When all else failed,
I brought them light.

Pause gentle stranger and shed a tear,
For the forgotten memories buried here.

GWB, Gordon William Bain,
February 2002.