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Saturday 29 March 2014

Poem: Houses breathe us in

Photograph by Margaret Bednar
"I'm always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods" - Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's

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houses breathe us in

their walls dripping with time past, entwine lifelines

the museums of our triumphs, failures and milestones

all filled with stains from which we grew

places we've been to are wired like electrons to our memories

returning, revisiting at any moment

from the forests where the battles of history unfolded

to the mists of the April rain showers

and the sunlight of the evening catching your desires

you were there,

                that's why it matters

a certain feeling, a sound - like a silk tread

pierces through our hearts, evoking a traveller within
*

Written for a prompt by Margaret at the real toads.

12 comments:

  1. very evocative lines...love 'the stains from which we grew'...as i read the lines 'the traveller' within becomes nostalgic...

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  2. cool opening line...houses breathing us in...
    and i like how the last line pulls against that
    how the littlest thread pulls us to move on.

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  3. What an intriguing concept to think about houses breathing those who live there in. I GET it. The house becomes part of those who live there. And those who live there forever become part of the house & its history through the years. Well penned poem, Natasa.

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  4. It's so true...parts of us entwined with the buildings we have lived and loved in. You can always feel the essence of a building when you enter it. You get a sense whether it was a place of joy and light or hardship and shadows. Beautiful, Nataša.

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  5. I believe houses do have a life and we are part of each place we visit.

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  6. I love the idea that some of us remains in those walls that housed our lives there........certainly those walls figure in our memories of times past.........loved this poem, Natasa.

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  7. Some houses definitely seem to have absorbed memories of the people who have lived there. "entwine lifelines / the museums of our triumphs, failures and milestones - I love this image. It speaks to me!

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  8. Places where we lived really 'breathe us in', memory come at any moment, comparing and being like first love, unrepeatable...~ Magnetic poem.

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  9. a certain feeling, a sound - like a silk tread
    pierces through our hearts, evoking a traveler within

    The travel bug is always there to goad one to move on. Nicely Natasa!

    Hank

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  10. "Houses breathe us in.." Lovely. Yes, each house we move into becomes a part of us.

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  11. "and the sunlight of the evening catching your desires

    you were there,"… Yes, a last lingering look, and you hope you can be back soon. I remember looking at the houses and thinking "I wish I belonged to that house"

    Thanks for writing to this - I just saw it now.

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