Since some time, I think a May, empty, lain this house for sale, thirty years to the day.
Scudding clouds in remaining panes, passing reflections, they don’t stay.
Windows, doors agape, inviting leaves, drifting in bedrooms, skittish across tiled hall and cascading staircase.
Feathers and dust covers dust covered furniture and owl pellets pile in the pantry. Its inhabitants?
The flying and feathered. Room to room they swoop, sing and preen, the exuberant and meek.
Every buyer’s arrival, triumphant and loud, then quiet forlorn leaving, always within the week. 
Passing reflections these people.
However much they closed windows and cladded doors, they’d be flung at dawn,
wrenched from nail and batten, the wild garden strewn with detritus of failed intent.
‘Why do the windows always open, as if free and afloat?’
‘Temper, you can try, but this house belongs to the birds’, I say to my beloved,
‘You would love this place, maybe we should buy it, but have seeds in your pocket, and bring a coat.

Since some time, I think a May, empty, lain this house for sale, thirty years to the day. Scudding clouds in remaining panes, passing reflections, they don’t stay. Windows, doors agape, inviting leaves, drifting in bedrooms, skittish across tiled hall and cascading staircase. Feathers and dust covers dust covered furniture and owl pellets pile in the pantry. Its inhabitants? The flying and feathered. Room to room they swoop, sing and preen, the exuberant and meek. Every buyer’s arrival, triumphant and loud, then quiet forlorn leaving, always within the week. Passing reflections these people. However much they closed windows and cladded doors, they’d be flung at dawn, wrenched from nail and batten, the wild garden strewn with detritus of failed intent. ‘Why do the windows always open, as if free and afloat?’ ‘Temper, you can try, but this house belongs to the birds’, I say to my beloved, ‘You would love this place, maybe we should buy it, but have seeds in your pocket, and bring a coat.