The Painted Chair

When the season changes

(that first snow, that first really hot day),

my earlier selves come crowding back, jostling for attention.



Again I walk on bright leaves, savoring the air's tiniest chill,

my twelve-year-old body springy and yearning,

envisioning some cloudy fabulous event still to come.



I wasn't sure what it would look like, but it was something so good

that when it arrived I would be stunned with my good fortune,

able at first to think only, "Oh! Oh! Oh!"



And for some moments I feel that again, the feeling shadowed this time

by the knowledge that the immensely good fortune never came,

and never would, unless - could it be? - this is it. Oh.



Or, I wake up in a room not mine,

and I know my own room again, by its absence.

Not just the smell and look of it, but also the feeling

you get from knowing that walls and furniture are located here

rather than there.

And suddenly I know my self

in my accustomed room,

and the difference between it and my self

in this room.


For a moment I know the house I lived in as a child, and the bed I slept in -

they are back again, brighter and more solid than they were then,

and more lovely - the lilac leaves through the window,

the painted chair,

the door through which I will walk.




Photo by Horia Varlan