Octagon of home

· by · in dVerse, free verse, poetry. ·

I.
The walls of any home is less
its stone and mortar
than the spyglass on the
upper floor.

II.
Coming home is
a piece sandglass
being polished
on a shore at dusk.

III.
In any home
the windows have a purpose
of the moonlight
whispered late at night.

IV.
A home is more
a garden filled with trees
than a walk-in-closet
filled with shirts.

V
Drinking coffee after breakfast
changed
the dwelling to a home.

VI
On the rooftop of a mansion
two crows
have found their home.

VII
Home is crunch
of gravel just before
a door is opened.

VIII.
Home is where
the dreams and libraries
can grow.

At home by Boris Kustodiev

Open Link with Grace today at dVerse. Soon it opens, join us.
—
March 23, 2017

40 responses to “Octagon of home”

  1. I love your image of home, “more than a walk-in closet filled with shirts”, but where “dreams and libraries can grow”. Well said!

  3. Such beautiful ways of defining ‘home’, Björn, with the ‘spyglass on the upper floor’, the ‘sandglass being polished on a shore’ and the windows glass for the whispering moonlight. Does the librarian live there too?

  4. I like the fifth one the best. When we travel for vacations we usually stay at Home Away or Airbnb places. Once we understand the place well enough to get a pound of coffee from the grocery story and figure out the coffee maker that’s when I feel we are at home.

  5. Whispering moonlight! What a marvelous phrase. I’ve been thinking of what home is lately. our home is too big for two growing elderly people, but then again, we have invested 45 years in this old house. Every part of it is known and at times, magical. Especially in the moonlight. Where you can’t see the cracks and the dust. Lovely, contemplative poem, Bjorn….made me think more.

  6. I love this! ❤️ Especially “A home is more a garden filled with trees
    than a walk-in-closet filled with shirts.” Beautifully rendered.

  7. I almost thought of writing in this style, smiles ~ Love the different hues and shapes of home, but that last one just sings to me ~

  8. #s 4 and 8 — yes, yes, YES! LOVE this idea of creating an octagon of 8 pieces — into a home 🙂 Have a lovely weekend, my friend.

  9. Bjorn, I love your poetic definition of what home is. There’s something about a personal library that screams, this is who I am.

  11. Your eight pieces of soulful brevity sigh like wind in the curtains, squeak like hinges on the cellar door, gulp like sump pumps gurgling, rattle like loose tin on the deck roof, creak like phantoms on the floor as we sleep below–see, brother, you got me started.

  14. I love the idea of home as the place where dreams and libraries can grow – my perfect definition (although the coffee comes close too). I am not sure I understand II and III, though: is there a comma where there shouldn’t be one in II and do you mean the windows have a purpose in III?

  15. Awesome title. Makes me think of chemistry … building models of elements and compounds.

    Then a stop sign, I suppose. 😛

    “Coming home, is
    a piece” … Love that line break. It makes me see things like “Coming home, eyes …” and “Coming home, miss.” I also see “Pisces” playing in the word “piece.”

  16. Have you ever read Philip Larkin’s poem, Home is so sad? Yours brought it back to me –

    Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
    Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
    As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
    Of anyone to please, it withers so,
    Having no heart to put aside the theft

    And turn again to what it started as,
    A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
    Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
    Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
    The music in the piano stool. That vase.

    Wonderful stuff, if more than a little sad!!

  25. Home is where
    the dreams and libraries
    can grow

    Invariably a happy home environment will spur on the success of the family within and the opposite is also true!

    Hank

  26. I love all of them! But my favourites are V. and VIII.
    “Home is where
    the dreams and libraries
    can grow”
    How true it is! 🙂

  28. I always like coming home each day, so II and VII have my vote, although I loved peeking into the other sides of your welcoming home, too! Thank you.

  34. I recognize that theme of “libraries in your poetry. Recently, an inmate left, and when they cleaned out his cell, they found about 200 books! I have about 15 in mine.

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