I’m coming out of depression (I’m coming out of depression?!), so the sense of this poem has shifted a bit since I composed it earlier this summer. Instead of banishing, I’m thinking about communication and invitation.

But it’s the last days of the old moon, so banishing feels appropriate. If I can see through the wildfire smoke that’s headed up-valley, I’ll go offer my own increasing clarity to some late-summer stars tonight.

Explaining Why I am Trying to Compose 
a Banishing Spell for My House

This house tries to be the house where all are welcome. 
Including spiders the size of a human palm. 
It loves the way they move: tap-dancing sprinters.
This house imagines itself a cradle of family, 
reminding us how we all belong together. 
It herds us close and smiles, well done.  
This house enjoys the heat, the cold, and relishes the wind. 
It loves silence. Until a dog barks or the neighbors party,
then it loves that too. It adores the sun 
and the way light crawls through maple leaf 
and under lowering overhang 
to sprawl across its tough old oaken floors.
The worn-smooth boards are comfortable, cackling gossips. 
If this house has ghosts, they are happy, loud, unwistful.
When I go from this house, it will haunt no part of me.