these shadows keep on changing
I'm watching a building being torn down.
A place that I'll now only be able to remember being inside, a place that stood for years upon years, is being turned to rubble and cleared away. Like never was, never had been even. Only memories now will say otherwise.
It's weird to think of places not existing anymore, places themselves becoming places we can never go back to. That there's going to be a hole in me in the shape of that building, those rooms, in the open area of where-it-was.
The crane destroying it looks like a robot dinosaur.
The dust debris is making me cough though, considering it's a building twenty feet away from ours.
The third years have taken to either teasing or flirting with me, I'm not sure. Nor can I tell when they're making fun of me; if some of them are actually fondly messing with me or if they're masking their dislike in their games. I shouldn't let it bother me, but I admit not knowing the meaning of all their comments puts me in an extreme authorial disadvantage, especially since Bambi is new enough to not be able to reprimand them yet if they are saying things out of line. Most of the kids are fine, but some are probably pushing their luck farther than I ought've let them. It's a troubling development.
Morning in the Burned House
by Margaret Atwood
In the burned house I am eating breakfast.
You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast,
yet here I am.
The spoon which was melted scrapes against
the bowl which was melted also.
No one else is around.
Where have they gone to, brother and sister,
mother and father? Off along the shore,
perhaps. Their clothes are still on the hangers,
their dishes piled beside the sink,
which is beside the woodstove
with its grate and sooty kettle,
every detail clear,
tin cup and rippled mirror.
The day is bright and songless,
the lake is blue, the forest watchful.
In the east a bank of cloud
rises up silently like dark bread.
I can see the swirls in the oilcloth,
I can see the flaws in the glass,
those flares where the sun hits them.
I can't see my own arms and legs
or know if this is a trap or blessing,
finding myself back here, where everything
in this house has long been over,
kettle and mirror, spoon and bowl,
including my own body,
including the body I had then,
including the body I have now
as I sit at this morning table, alone and happy,
bare child's feet on the scorched floorboards
(I can almost see)
in my burning clothes, the thin green shorts
and grubby yellow T-shirt
holding my cindery, non-existent,
radiant flesh. Incandescent.
A place that I'll now only be able to remember being inside, a place that stood for years upon years, is being turned to rubble and cleared away. Like never was, never had been even. Only memories now will say otherwise.
It's weird to think of places not existing anymore, places themselves becoming places we can never go back to. That there's going to be a hole in me in the shape of that building, those rooms, in the open area of where-it-was.
The crane destroying it looks like a robot dinosaur.
The dust debris is making me cough though, considering it's a building twenty feet away from ours.
The third years have taken to either teasing or flirting with me, I'm not sure. Nor can I tell when they're making fun of me; if some of them are actually fondly messing with me or if they're masking their dislike in their games. I shouldn't let it bother me, but I admit not knowing the meaning of all their comments puts me in an extreme authorial disadvantage, especially since Bambi is new enough to not be able to reprimand them yet if they are saying things out of line. Most of the kids are fine, but some are probably pushing their luck farther than I ought've let them. It's a troubling development.
Morning in the Burned House
by Margaret Atwood
In the burned house I am eating breakfast.
You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast,
yet here I am.
The spoon which was melted scrapes against
the bowl which was melted also.
No one else is around.
Where have they gone to, brother and sister,
mother and father? Off along the shore,
perhaps. Their clothes are still on the hangers,
their dishes piled beside the sink,
which is beside the woodstove
with its grate and sooty kettle,
every detail clear,
tin cup and rippled mirror.
The day is bright and songless,
the lake is blue, the forest watchful.
In the east a bank of cloud
rises up silently like dark bread.
I can see the swirls in the oilcloth,
I can see the flaws in the glass,
those flares where the sun hits them.
I can't see my own arms and legs
or know if this is a trap or blessing,
finding myself back here, where everything
in this house has long been over,
kettle and mirror, spoon and bowl,
including my own body,
including the body I had then,
including the body I have now
as I sit at this morning table, alone and happy,
bare child's feet on the scorched floorboards
(I can almost see)
in my burning clothes, the thin green shorts
and grubby yellow T-shirt
holding my cindery, non-existent,
radiant flesh. Incandescent.