Every so often I stumble across something that intersects with something I've written long ago. Case in point, photographer Kate Peters' 'home' and a long forgotten poem from 1992:
Homestead
It was found in the fog that shivered
the slivers of glass in the windows.
It was seen in the sheen of the moon
on the unworn wood of the floor.
It spoke with the slow, patient clutching of light
and tapped out the unknown codes of the flesh,
the indistinct worm of the years and the shapes
of desire, possession, and fate.
It was mute.
It was stitched in the spaces
of the wind's alphabet.
It was clothed in cool hands
gloved in wet weather.
It appeared on the paths
that admitted no passage.
It's rachety rhythms
were all made of match sticks.
It waited.
It's slashings were tattooed
on drapes of dank velvet.
It's gibbering laughter inserted itself
between doorway and jamb and continued to carve.
It's snickering plumbing
rotted the dinner.
They had left, they had left.
Indeed, they had left.
Of that all their objects would clearly attest.
The picture and the poem are made for each other!
I especially like
"It was stitched in the spaces
of the wind's alphabet.'
Because it makes me think of someone slowly, repetitively cross-stitching a sampler, the way the wind will swirl around in the same pattern around a building.
Empty houses are so full of stories waiting to be heard.
Posted by: retriever at September 28, 2009 5:07 PMOh, I did enjoy your poem.
Years ago I, too, wrote a 3 stanza poem about a vacant house . . yours is more elegant and fearsome. This line about encroaching wildness:
. . It appeared on the paths
that admitted no passage. . .
My try at addressing human efforts succumbing - tips toward the mawkish . . still,I like it.
Pressed around its sagging walls
the flowers bow their heads.
Peony blush and lily white
give way to bramble reds.
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