A room in this old house, holds history–<\/p>\n
mine, yours ours and theirs.<\/p>\n
This room is where I sleep nights;<\/p>\n
it’s where I awaken each day to<\/p>\n
slatted light from vertical blinds<\/p>\n
that open to a window laden with<\/p>\n
orange tree leaves and ripened<\/p>\n
fruit, the color of the sun setting<\/p>\n
on the Pacific not more than a mile<\/p>\n
from this very room in this home.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Its cornflower blue walls contain<\/p>\n
my thoughts and prayers, my<\/p>\n
ujjayi breath, sometime despair.<\/p>\n
This oaken floor steadies my<\/p>\n
bare feet, wears my yoga mat,<\/p>\n
including the cat on top who<\/p>\n
skrick scratches her claws in it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But it wasn’t always my cave;<\/p>\n
it belonged to others before me.<\/p>\n
Two nieces slept here, the last<\/p>\n
who chose the wall colors, and<\/p>\n
the one before who now sleeps<\/p>\n
in my parents’ home, while they<\/p>\n
sleep in mine now, in their room,<\/p>\n
which used to be the play room<\/p>\n
for loud television shows and toys<\/p>\n
and kool aid colored couches for<\/p>\n
friends to jump on and destroy.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And before that, it was the bedroom<\/p>\n
my husband designed and had built<\/p>\n
by a friend who charged too much and<\/p>\n
stole his baby grand piano on pretext.<\/p>\n
And before it was our bedroom, where<\/p>\n
our children were conceived and I<\/p>\n
labored in our big blue sunken jacuzzi<\/p>\n
tub beneath the bay window and lime<\/p>\n
stone tiles surrounding the midnight blue,<\/p>\n
it was an office converted from a garage,<\/p>\n
where his business began selling hardware,<\/p>\n
which eventually turned to software and an<\/p>\n
office elsewhere, which he sold to find<\/p>\n
more fulfilling work, which he still seeks.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But when my parents moved in, we moved<\/p>\n
the bed, desk, dresser, night table and lamps<\/p>\n
into my room, the room I share with no one<\/p>\n
except the dog, a few cats and the constant<\/p>\n
turnstile traffic of inquirers and visitors living<\/p>\n
in and outside the house, my room, the hub,<\/p>\n
with its Picasso print of woman-dove face in<\/p>\n
black and white, who resembles my oldest<\/p>\n
daughter even though I bought that print<\/p>\n
twenty years before her birth, and now that<\/p>\n
she’s twenty herself, she tattooed that face<\/p>\n
on her left arm, just like it appears on my<\/p>\n
bedroom wall, above the hand painted<\/p>\n
poster that asks, “Is there no way out of the<\/p>\n
mind?”, purchased and overpriced by a<\/p>\n
friend of my daughter’s who painted and<\/p>\n
sold it to me after she returned from rehab.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And the Van Gogh with the gilt frame, huge<\/p>\n
hanging above my bed, well that was a gift<\/p>\n
from my nephew when he was only 23, and<\/p>\n
he knew I loved art and so wrapped this big<\/p>\n
old Starry Night print and gave it to me, so<\/p>\n
that’s why it’s there framed above my head,<\/p>\n
garish and clich\u00e9 but sentimentally stationed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Because my room holds pictures of my girls,<\/p>\n
and a fan that cools me summers and a<\/p>\n
heater that warms me winters, and dozens<\/p>\n
of ceramic boxes and knick knacks and the<\/p>\n
remains of my jewelry box, what wasn’t<\/p>\n
stolen by someone who knew the dog<\/p>\n
well enough not to get bitten as an intruder.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This room holds hours of frustration, and<\/p>\n
ideas, poems and graded essays, years of<\/p>\n
reading and writing, drawing, coloring and<\/p>\n
crocheting, fretting and forgetting, crying<\/p>\n
and laughing, the entire history of a house,<\/p>\n
its inhabitants, furnishings, we call home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A room in this old house, holds history– mine, yours ours and theirs. This room is where I sleep nights; it’s where I awaken each day to slatted light from vertical blinds that open to a window laden with orange tree leaves and ripened fruit,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28397,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28154\/revisions\/28397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}