
Two prolific poets approach ‘house’ through different doors:
THE BUILDER OF HOUSES
by Jane Cooper
What was the blond child building
Down by the pond at near-dark
When the trees had lost their gilding
And the giant shadows stepped
To the water’s edge, then stopped?
With intent fingers, doing a boy’s work
In a boy”s old sweater
She hammered against her dear world’s dirty weather.
Proud of her first house
Which boasted an orange-crate ceiling
A pillow, a stuffed mouse…
FULL TEXT HERE
from Poetry, Oct. 1958
AN HOUR IS NOT A HOUSE
by Jane Hirshfield
An hour is not a house,
a life is not a house,
you do not go through them as if
they were doors to another.
Yet an hour can have shape and proportion,
four walls, a ceiling
An hour can be dropped like a glass….
FULL TEXT HERE
from Poetry, Apr. 2013
Bonus tidbit: Hirshfield on The Art of the Metaphor (TED talk)
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