The New House
The New House - meaning Summary
Memory and Domestic Space
The poem considers how language, feeling and memory inhabit a house long after events have passed. The speaker imagines past words and emotions as physical imprints in walls, floors and shadows, and deliberately brings held memories into the space so they can exist there. Facing a future move, the speaker worries about legacy: which parts of their self will remain in the house once they leave.
Read Complete AnalysesWhat words have smashed against these walls, crashed up and down these halls, lain mute and then drained their meanings out and into these floors? What feelings, long since dead, streamed vague yearnings below this ceiling light? In some dimension, which I cannot know, the shadows of another still exist. I bring my memories, held too long in check, to let them here shoulder space and place to be. And when I leave to find another house, I wonder, what among these shades will be left of me.
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