A GATHERING STOOD LOOKING UP
WHAT WAS IT THEY ALL ESPIED
SOMEONE HAD YELLED OUT THERE'S A WOLF
BUT OF COURSE THAT SOMEONE LIED


THERE WAS ONLY A SILHOUTTE
BUT STILL THEY STOOD AND GAPED
A CLOTH SIGN HAD TO BE READ
OVER THE PICKET FENCE IT DRAPED


THE WRITTEN WORD FASCINATED
ALL WHO STOOD WAY DOWN BELOW
FOR YEARS ABOUT THE RESIDENT
A LOT OF GOSSIP DID FLOW


THAT OLD HOUSE WHICH STOOD ON THE HILL
WAS TRULY SOMETHING TO SEE
MOST THOUGHT IT WAS SO HAUNTED
MUCH TO THE TOWN CHILDRENS' GLEE


IT WAS BUILT OF LARGE TOURMALINE
DUG OUT OF THE LOCAL GROUND
AND HAD A TOWER ON THE TOP
VERY TALL AND OH SO ROUND


IT WAS THE MOST ANCIENT OF ALL
THE BUILDINGS IN THAT OLD TOWN
AND INSIDE LIVED AN ANCIENT MAN
WHO FOREVER WORE A FROWN


THE CLOTH SIGN THAT DRAPED ON THE FENCE
TOLD A STORY OF SUCH AWE
"THIS OLD HOUSE HAS BEEN FORECLOSED ON"


by order of the town's law

In view of the bold silhouette
Of an ancient house on the hill,
I set down my jewelers tool set,
On a bench by the window sill.


Gathering the notes before me,
I studied the instructions well.
The cat in the shop ignored me,
Resting on a chair for a spell.


The written word made it a cinch,
So I picked up the tourmaline,
In diameter, a full inch,
The biggest gem I’d ever seen.


I placed it in a little vice,
Tightening the tool carefully.
Proper cuts would double the price,
Each facet a new mystery.


My attention lent to the gleam
Of a spot just beneath the crown,
Offering a beckoning beam,
So I began to saw straight down.


Nervously, I began my cut,
And you wouldn’t believe the stress.
Oh no, I’m not a jeweler, but
I’ve stayed at Holiday Express.

The house on the hill looked over a valley splashed with the colors of an early fall.
Faintly, in the distance, caught on the breeze was a Whippoorwill's call.



The silhouette against the twilight sky grew closer, as the bird landed in a nearby tree.
At peace with the landscape, fluttering wings rustled the leaves, taking to the air again across the valley and free.



The ancient hills weave their magic each Autumn like an expensive carpet woven in the colors of earth.
Giving us cause for laughter and rebirth.



Gathering her cloak of darkness around her, Mother Nature sleeps once more.
She will awake in the Spring with a new splash of color once more.



Like a tourmaline sparkling in the sun she will show forth her coat of many colors with a panoramic view.
It will be another season before she will take on yet another hue.



To everything there is a season "the written word..."
Now a hush of silence over the land drops like a curtain, and not a sound will be heard.

The house was on a hill,
A long green ramped one,
People just called it,
The house on the hill.


Ancient they are as is the house
Were the way they were referred to.
We children thought it haunted
And no sleigh riding we did on that hill.


One night as I was walking home,
A silhouette of a gnome I did see,
Scared me and I began to run,
Knowing my foul deed had caught up with me.


As I tried to get, a pleasant voice said,
“Oh let me help you.”
A tall man with a beard did smile down at me.
He took my hand and helped me up.


As we talked he referred to the written word,
I shook my hand and asked him what?
He said it was the word of god,
And laid out how we should live.


As we talked and walked along,
We did still hold hands.
And when we got to the gate,
He said he must get on home.


I bid him a good evening and then went on home.
I asked my dad about the man,
Said they made a fortune in tourmaline,
A mineral that looked like gems.


I liked that old man,
So the next evening I went down to the gate,
And when he walked down the hill,
I greeted him and an apple offered.


We walked and talked, men stuff you see,
And he said, “Come and see me.”
I shook and shivered as I walked up that hill,
Nicest folks I ever met.

An old monk scissors his silhouettes,
Cross-legged, earning his way,
He's humming a chant low and sweet,
In quiet meditation on this sunny day.


"The written word..." he recites,
He knows it fully and well,
Now he applies his ordered time,
To earning a bit by his monastery bell.


‘Tis in a still ancient time he lives,
Primitively cutting meticulously ,
He has made silhouetted profiles
Of princes and kings - angelically.


What seems to be a house on a hill,
Is an abbey once treasured, now poor.
Richer than then the old monk muses,
Old forgotten mason's stones-carved doors.


On his cot now at the end of the day,
He gazes through tourmaline windows,
The gathering brothers ate their dinner fish,
With his world's contribution he reposes.

House on a hill, dark and mysterious,
The man who lives there, old and serious.
I say serious because he's a scholar,
A Harvard graduate who saves every dollar.


He's a writer, a gem collector, a stargazer,
His mind is quick, as sharp as a razor.
He also collects rare books and ancient maps.
Some say he protects his place with booby traps.


A silhouette of mystery and intrigue,
House better viewed from the shores of Fort Migg,
Situated on the ocean, it's anchored to the rocks,
Lest crashing waves destroy it and the docks.


Mysterious weekend gatherings take place every fall,
When chartered boats, and sail boats arrive at the wall.
Of rumors there are many, but no one knows,
Maybe they study the written word, like poetry and prose.


The written word? No, they buy and sell gemstones.
Gemstones, like tourmaline and moonstones?
"Let's investigate," someone bravely said.
"Count me out...I'd rather be alive than dead."


Dark bushes, dark windows, even darker inside,
Funeral music, like someone has died.
A room full of people, man speaking in a drone,
About an object on the table, a glowing red stone.


The following day, this in the New York Times,
'Largest of its kind', in bold, black headlines.
'Gemstone of the rainbow', a collector's delight,
A red tourmaline stone sold for 1.5 million last night

With the full moon rising behind it,
It's silhouette looked quite bleak.
There it sat, the house on a hill
Just below the mountains peak.


The ancient pines rose all around.
Covering it in a shroud of green.
The shadows gathering like ghosts.
But that's how it's always been.


No one knows who lives there.
"The written word"...has never told.
The sky is the color of tourmaline
Even the air feels very old.


But when the sun rises on it
And bright becomes the day.
You can see it for what it is...
The local Y.M.C.A......