Strange But True 1 - The Burning House Poem by David Harris

There were four of us in the garden,
which overlooked a valley below.
The sunset was moving across the sky,
as the songs of twilight could be heard,
then a siren made us look around.
There below us within a grove of trees,
a spiral of smoke rose to meet the sky.
The house within the grove was burning fiercely;
its glow could be seen by us on higher ground,
but not by those on the lower ground.
We sat and watch in fascination
as there was little we could do.
Because the house was well hidden from the road,
the fire department missed it too.
Eventually when they reached the house, t
he occupants had perished in the flames.

Therefore, begins the story
I have never been able to explain.
A year went by and the charred ruins remained.
Nothing was ever built on the spot
nor the ground ever reclaimed.
The only monument that was left there
was the charred black timber on the ground.

My friends and I were playing
as we usually did in the garden,
overlooking the valley below
when a silence seem to engulf us.
In the distance, the mournful wail of a siren
broke the stillness there.
Looking down into the valley
we were amazed at what we saw,
a spiral of smoke reaching to the sky
within the grove of trees where the house used to be
from a burning building that was no longer there,
exactly how we had witnessed it a year before.
For an hour, we watched fascinated,
until the images we saw began to fade.
Did it all play back for some Anniversary,
or were our minds jut playing tricks on us all?
The question still bothers me
over fifty years from that day.
I will never know the truth,
and the mystery will always stay a mystery.