“Houses, you know, grow stubborn easily, when you strip them bare.”
—George Seferis, from “Thrush”
Not your usual idea
Of a child’s elevated playhouse
Full of youthful abandon,
Full of youthful abandon,
But this
Abandoned, low-lying roofless
Abandoned, low-lying roofless
Shell of decaying stone walls
Inhabited by stubborn runaway
Brambles and wild olive trees
Rooted firmly to the earth.
This is fantastic! So many poems go for the airy, the watery, the evanescent—as if that's where the epiphanies are hidden. (Up in the "elevated playhouse.") But for me it's in moments like this: decaying, earthy, tangled, rooted. And the Seferis quote is wonderful. My impression is that he traveled a lot and so knew a lot about houses stripped bare. Certainly his experience of war gave him that sensitivity....
ReplyDeleteThanks, Joe, for your thoughts on this poem and, by extension,where epiphanies are hiding their illuminating little heads; as you pointed out, Seferis certainly was well-acquainted with houses abandoned by their owners, as this is one of his main images of his poetry, a sensitivity nourished by the fact that his family originally came from Asia Minor, and reinforced by his extensive travels as a diplomat.
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