Back –to-back terraced houses separated by the length of gardens.
Why don’t I draw the curtains on the dim orange glow of light
From a solitary window?
It rises into the blue-black night, a gable wall, a tall chimney, not
Spacing its dominant force against the orderly rows, an oddity
In a row of conformity.
I saw that film once, the Amityville horror with twin eyes gleaming.
This lower light on the right-hand side draws more fear than any
Made-up horror.
It has no right to be there, you see? A tiny square of light where there
Should be more. Like a blinded big cat – a lion or a tiger with one eye
Put out but still stalking.
I see it now through darkened glass – I cannot let it dominate my
Thoughts, so I can’t /won’t draw the curtains against the night, in case
That light goes out.
I imagine that to be the worst image of all – for what then would I see
In the blackness beyond my dirty window? A nothing? A glimpse of a
World beyond my imagination?
And that I have in myriad fragments-the end of what I cannot see.
………….
Comments
Ssor | February 20, 2008 - 17:09
This is so haunting. Strangely enough, I just read the Victorian poet, Charlotte Mew's poem about windows in England:
On the Asylum Road
Theirs is the house whose windows---every pane---
Are made of darkly stained or clouded glass:
Sometimes you come upon them in the lane,
The saddest crowd that you will ever pass.
But still we merry town or village folk
Throw to their scattered stare a kindly grin,
And think no shame to stop and crack a joke
With the incarnate wages of man's sin.
None but ourselves in our long gallery we meet,
The moor-hen stepping from her reeds with dainty feet,
The hare-bell bowing on its stem,
Dance not with us; their pulses beat
To fainter music; nor do we to them
Make their life sweet.
The gayest crowd that they will ever pass
Are we to brother-shadows in the lane:
Our windows, too, are clouded glass
To them, yes, every pane!