FEELING THE EMPTY
Poem for Today - September 9, 2014
THE EMPTY HOUSE
Then, when the child was gone,
I was alone
I was alone
In the house, suddenly grown huge.
Each noise
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:
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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