Tuesday, September 9, 2014

FEELING THE EMPTY

Poem for Today - September 9, 2014



THE EMPTY HOUSE

Then, when the child was gone,
I was alone
In the house, suddenly grown huge.
Each noise
Explained itself away
As bird, or creaking board, or mouse,
Element or animal.
But mostly there was quiet as after battle
Where round the room still lay
The soldiers and the paintbox and the toys.
But when I went to tidy these away,
I felt my mind swerve:
My body was the house,
And everything he’d touched, and exposed nerve.

© Stephen Spender
The New Yorker Book
of Poems, page 192


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