What Kind of House Are You Now?

I’m a bungalow with an airplane wing
too hot to inhabit except in winter.
Did I mention I could fly?

I’m a rambling ranch going to town
and back to the country again
to plop myself down in a den of sunflowers,
annuals with faces large as platters to face
down the darkness until we all turn to sleep.

I’m a Victorian in great disrepair
on the edge of what was once a great dome
of a city. It rains here, mostly drizzle now
that we’ve lost our thunder, but in the flash
of moon every October, my attic ignites
into a miniature circus of curious and lost
toys come home to roost and play.

I’m a yurt full of flies in summer,
a dusting of snow in winter,
three sets of bunk beds but always
enough blankets, which is good
since I live at higher elevation than most
humans can stand, and I love the solitude.

I’m a house of dreams draped in snow,
my roof starting to sag, but look what comes!
Crows large as house cats, tiny juncos afraid
of nothing, female cardinals with their orange
tails and tailwinds propelling them and all
the others to my bird feeders spilling
across the yard, welcoming everyone.

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About the Author

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Ph.D., the 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate is the author of 24 books, including How Time Moves: New & Selected Poems; Miriam's Well, a novel; Needle in the Bone, a non-fiction book on the Holocaust; The Sky Begins At Your Feet: A Memoir on Cancer, Community, and Coming Home to the Body. Founder of Transformative Language Arts, she leads writing workshops widely, coaches people on writing and right livelihood, and consults on creativity.

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
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