Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, STILLORGAN, by JAMES MONAHAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

STILLORGAN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: This house that is not old or beautiful
Last Line: Deeper than words, and words can never say.
Subject(s): Family Life; Home; Relatives


THIS house that is not old or beautiful,
these garden paths of weeds, those unkempt firs
that I remember at their desolate swaying,
their sad, soft drooping over this my home.

The avenue, stony through the cracked brown gate,
has one particular curve; upon its gravel
a touch I did not find in other places.
And all this house is crowded with my years —
bare rugs, the pictures, hands on the banister,
the family footsteps coming up the stair;
voices in the kitchen, and the knives
sharpening, and the scurry of the dog;
the marked piano and the singing bowl;
the chandelier jigging when fat Mary walks,
and after dinner and we by the fire and drowsy,
the slow talk then, words with a kernel love
for each of us who are too seldom there.

And outside it is green. I know the trees,
the old, the young, the fallen, and the granite
in the front field where all the pigeons come.
The hills are clear from there. The hills, green, cold,
familiar, and with the brief, unhappy winds
bending the heather, clinging in my hair.
I know these places. I am made of them,
deeper than words, and words can never say.





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