The Medlock-Graham House

The Medlock-Graham House on Whidbey Island, Washington, USA, photo by Jim Givens

Ann Medlock participates in Building Beauty’s The Nature of Order seminar, and, as we all expressed our thanks for the opportunity to learn together another year, she offered a poem that she wrote years ago about the process of working with Christopher Alexander on the design and construction of her home. For more on Ann’s experience with this, see her Building with Christopher Alexander — An Illustrated Memoir.

Alexander sculpts a building

out of air and wisdom,

waving his hands,

squinting his eyes

to see what only he and God can see

in this clearing on the bluff.

Listening to something

we cannot hear, he brings into being

a house so solid, silent and calm,

so embracing, consoling and inevitable,

that it draws in and restores

every open soul that finds its way here.

And many do.

Pilgrims who have heard,

who’ve seen a photograph,

who sense that here there is something

mysterious, rare, perhaps even inspired.

On a clear blue afternoon

we sit at a long table in the sun,

the house embracing this garden

and all of us who bask here

amid the calendulas and ferns.

Feasting on tabouli and cold birds,

we talk of poetry and paintings,

of terraces in Tuscany and homemade wine,

of our work, our passions, our quests.

We are friends, gathered here

by the grace that emanates from this holy place. 

At Christmas, the clan assembles.

The tree, dressed in familiar ornaments,

touches the coffered ceiling

and sends the scent of balsam to mingle

with fire, roast and cakes.

Thick walls hold out the cold, the wind,

and every danger of the world we know.

Comets cut across the high windows

as we are drawn in and held fast, together,

blessed by the house that Alexander made,

while listening to God.