Last year Australian author Gail Jones gave a talk called ‘Discovering time’ which was in the context of her beautiful book Five Bells. One of the statements she made was: ‘a poem is a kind of room; we rest there’, which inspired today’s poem.
Siesta
It’s half past three in the afternoon
time to make a cup of tea and go to my room
lie on my bed
sink into my head
hear the ticking of my father’s red clock
wear my mother’s cream wool shawl
and I sense how a poem is this kind of room,
that here, within its irregular walls
I can examine the dents in the wardrobe
trace and follow the lines on the floorboards
breathe the memories in shifting spaces
and when I open the blinds it is inside out:
the room contains more than everything outside it.
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