monday poem #258: Seamus Heaney, "'The Door Was Open and the House Was Dark'"
Seamus Heaney, 1939-2013.
"The Door Was Open and the House Was Dark"
The door was open and the house was dark
Wherefore I called his name, although I knew
The answer this time would be silence
That kept me standing listening while it grew
Backwards and down and out into the street
Where as I'd entered (I remember now)
The streetlamps too were out.
I felt, for the first time there and then, a stranger,
Intruder almost, wanting to take flight
Yet well aware that here there was no danger,
Only withdrawal, a not unwelcoming
Emptiness, as in a midnight hangar
On an overgrown airfield in late summer.
- Seamus Heaney
from Human Chain
Originally posted at Dreamwidth || Read
comments on Dreamwidth
"The Door Was Open and the House Was Dark"
The door was open and the house was dark
Wherefore I called his name, although I knew
The answer this time would be silence
That kept me standing listening while it grew
Backwards and down and out into the street
Where as I'd entered (I remember now)
The streetlamps too were out.
I felt, for the first time there and then, a stranger,
Intruder almost, wanting to take flight
Yet well aware that here there was no danger,
Only withdrawal, a not unwelcoming
Emptiness, as in a midnight hangar
On an overgrown airfield in late summer.
- Seamus Heaney
from Human Chain
Originally posted at Dreamwidth || Read
comments on Dreamwidth