This is the roomwhere I birthed my son, down on all fours in animal pain, as the sire scrolled his Reddit feed, and the midwife shook a spider from her skirt. This is the room that I painted orange, where I curl and dream of desert canyons, then wake to walls that feel like friends. Between these walls, I finally knew that he would never see me— and that I’ve never needed him to. Still, this is the room where we thought I would die, and he crept back in to check my breathing, and his fear felt like a kind of love. This is the room where I signed the papers, then wrote vows to myself, it is the room where I am writing this poem, almost like another vow. When the air gets cold, spiders return, and I must make my peace with them again and again and again— but I can insist they stay far from my bed.
I love that your “centering sanctuary” includes so many clues to your life, interests, and loves! This is lovely, Larry. And oh my can I ever relate to this bit - “the books we piled floor to wall, the illusion that we would ever read them all”!
I write this in a short interlude between things this evening, for this room we called the Renaissance Room in our home, which has tended to be a bit of everything along the way. I never expected a rhyming poem to emerge, but here we go.
I love this ode to your orange bedroom...and this line: "his fear felt like a kind of love" Oooooph, visceral. The fact that you have such a long history with this room also fascinated me, because I've moved so many times in the past 20 years, and I don't have a strong connection with any sort of home. But, I did think of a room that has profoundly impacted me. Here it is:
Lisa, I swear I could feel the time you spent in that room stretching out inside your poem, every beautiful and difficult moment.
I realized while trying to write this poem that many of the significant rooms in my life have been filled with a longing to change something or skip ahead, so I feel like I need to sit with that.
I used to not like orange - it felt harsh and abrasive - but it’s been coming to me a lot recently. In softer hues, in joyful ones too. It’s also the sacral chakra - the spot of creativity and the womb space and pleasure. Things I have a deep longing for right now. This poem is so beautiful and I love how you weave the spiders in at the end.
Thank you for sharing such an intimate portrait of any intimate space Lisa. If I may add. this is also the room where your work and words bring people together!
This is so sweet and tender, Lisa, and funny. I love how you return to the spiders in the end, connecting to the wayward spider in your Midwife's skirt. This is very nicely done.
I love colors, and orange has been a favorite since I can remember knowing there were colors, with purple a cool second. Besides the joy it brings, soemthing about orange brings me a peace and warmth that feels transcendant. In high school, much to the disgust of my dad, my Mom gave the go-ahead to paint my bedroom orange--bright orange, at that. I was gone from home when they sold that house, and I sometimes wonder what the next owners made of and did with the orange bedroom? When I worked as a Chaplain at a University and ran a communtiy center which also had 8 rooms for students to live, we let them paint their rooms whatever color they wanted when they moved in.. Sadly, in 22 years no one picked orange, but we did paint one of the kitchens orange with yellow and blue trim.
Thank you for this wonderful prompt. I marvel at how you bring these amazing and delightful prompts to us, and now know this orange room is a part of your beautiful creative process. Thank you for a glimpse into this special space, and into you. Prayers and blessings of light and love for you and your family and all fo the rooms you bring light into.
I love this poem so much, sis -- the lyrical cadence of it, the repetition of "this is the room," the funny-not-funny glimpse of the "sire" scrolling his Reddit feed, your deepening inhabitation of your room and your life, and the full-circle spider cameo, with great spider boundaries named and maintained at the end.
This is one of my poems I wrote in a small room in Kosovo after being surprised by a gorgeous moon. That room holds a lot of meaning, the friends and army buddies I shared it with, the many emotions and experiences that met me in that small Sea-hut built of pine by our Navy brothers.
I love that your “centering sanctuary” includes so many clues to your life, interests, and loves! This is lovely, Larry. And oh my can I ever relate to this bit - “the books we piled floor to wall, the illusion that we would ever read them all”!
I write this in a short interlude between things this evening, for this room we called the Renaissance Room in our home, which has tended to be a bit of everything along the way. I never expected a rhyming poem to emerge, but here we go.
Room of many faces,
the calmest of places
except when the wild things roam
in this space they called home.
Space of many colors,
crumbs from crackers and crullers,
library, drum studio, play room
even a spot for a long lost loom.
These walls have witnessed our dances
the sparks from our ignited romances,
the books we piled floor to wall,
the illusion that we would ever read them all.
The years have been kinder to your song,
this centering sanctuary where we always belong;
Here we learned the mystery of the grey
that seeped into our lives, day by day.
Seasons come and seasons go,
the changes we visioned have come too slow,
still they come to bring us breathless at last,
the sacred circles of the dreamers’ past.
Same old dock.
Pretty beat up,
missing a few planks.
Same old East River,
it never changes,
but the tides do seem a bit higher lately.
Same old wooden bench,
a two-seater,
the seascape stickers weathered and peeling,
bought on whim long ago at a Mathews market days.
a new cushion every so oftenfor my older and more tired-er backside.
My room.
Not much to look at.
Not really much of a room at all.
But, hush, and sit with me a spell,
if you have the time to spare.
and i will share my
front row season tickets
to the most amazing,
never ending,
rainbow of a symphony
that She calls creation.
A new opus each and every visit.
My green pasture
beside still waters
where He refreshes my soul.
I love this ode to your orange bedroom...and this line: "his fear felt like a kind of love" Oooooph, visceral. The fact that you have such a long history with this room also fascinated me, because I've moved so many times in the past 20 years, and I don't have a strong connection with any sort of home. But, I did think of a room that has profoundly impacted me. Here it is:
Never
could I ever have imagined
a single room might afford
so many views of
so many faces in
so many locations.
Nor that this modest room
could and would span time zones,
oceans, cultures, nations.
That, notwithstanding such modest
dimensions (8”x12” on any given day),
it could stretch to become
so consistently capacious, fitting
1 or 500, all the same.
In the beginning,
this room was reserved
for mundanities, mostly work meetings.
Then it was pressed into service as
an exam room for my doctor,
an office for my therapist,
a church basement for 12-step meetings,
a classroom,
a tai chi studio,
a disco,
a party venue,
the room at my dad’s nursing home
where I said goodbye to his body.
I’ve met the most incredible friends here,
gotten to know their insides
and the fronts of their faces
yet I can’t be sure they have bodies
or lower extremities, or even
whether they really exist
outside this strange room without
walls or doors or floors,
this room called zoom.
Lisa, I swear I could feel the time you spent in that room stretching out inside your poem, every beautiful and difficult moment.
I realized while trying to write this poem that many of the significant rooms in my life have been filled with a longing to change something or skip ahead, so I feel like I need to sit with that.
"This kitchen is for dancing,"
according to the cheerful sign
I hand painted and hung on the wall,
but in reality I sleep-walked through it
more than anything else, day-dreaming
of a life in which dancing was the default.
I used to not like orange - it felt harsh and abrasive - but it’s been coming to me a lot recently. In softer hues, in joyful ones too. It’s also the sacral chakra - the spot of creativity and the womb space and pleasure. Things I have a deep longing for right now. This poem is so beautiful and I love how you weave the spiders in at the end.
New to your Substack Lisa and I really loved this poem. I'm going to have to see if my poetic chops still work but I will share soon.
Thank you for sharing such an intimate portrait of any intimate space Lisa. If I may add. this is also the room where your work and words bring people together!
Thank you for the kind comments. Lisa, you are an outstanding poet and have a wonderful community here.
This is so sweet and tender, Lisa, and funny. I love how you return to the spiders in the end, connecting to the wayward spider in your Midwife's skirt. This is very nicely done.
I love colors, and orange has been a favorite since I can remember knowing there were colors, with purple a cool second. Besides the joy it brings, soemthing about orange brings me a peace and warmth that feels transcendant. In high school, much to the disgust of my dad, my Mom gave the go-ahead to paint my bedroom orange--bright orange, at that. I was gone from home when they sold that house, and I sometimes wonder what the next owners made of and did with the orange bedroom? When I worked as a Chaplain at a University and ran a communtiy center which also had 8 rooms for students to live, we let them paint their rooms whatever color they wanted when they moved in.. Sadly, in 22 years no one picked orange, but we did paint one of the kitchens orange with yellow and blue trim.
Thank you for this wonderful prompt. I marvel at how you bring these amazing and delightful prompts to us, and now know this orange room is a part of your beautiful creative process. Thank you for a glimpse into this special space, and into you. Prayers and blessings of light and love for you and your family and all fo the rooms you bring light into.
.....spiders......
Wow. Devastating in beautiful ways. 🧡Reminiscint of You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith, which I’m currently reading.
I love this poem so much, sis -- the lyrical cadence of it, the repetition of "this is the room," the funny-not-funny glimpse of the "sire" scrolling his Reddit feed, your deepening inhabitation of your room and your life, and the full-circle spider cameo, with great spider boundaries named and maintained at the end.
A beautiful and powerful poem Lisa.
His fear almost felt like love-
(Paraphrasing)
You really did a wonderful job of weaving time and space and emotion into this work. Beautiful
This is one of my poems I wrote in a small room in Kosovo after being surprised by a gorgeous moon. That room holds a lot of meaning, the friends and army buddies I shared it with, the many emotions and experiences that met me in that small Sea-hut built of pine by our Navy brothers.
https://open.substack.com/pub/billy2r6q7/p/24-feb-2000-half-moon-waning?r=1nyjrs&utm_medium=ios
For lack of a better title, let's call this "Boo, I Have to Work."
.
If my living room were a compass
you’d find a 40-degree sweep
of books on the southern wall,
a 30-degree span of couch (east)
that, despite being trained on a
a 10-degree patch of Netflix (west),
is more often used for phone calls,
poems, and every kind of page.
The couch is backlit with
feeder birds, and warmed
on the north by 2 degrees
of cast iron, within which pumps
the house’s 500-degree heart.
.
In all directions, art as I know it:
mountains collapsed into my
phone, then blown back up
and framed. Curios, prints, and
an original the size of a cereal box
that cost two years’ worth of
Grape-Nuts. A few of my own
originals, too, scratched
at the small table in the center
of the rose.
.
It’s a lively room, but the needle
is stubborn, pointing so often
to the northeast corner. Here is
where I sit in front of the 1-degree
money screen. I am flanked by
plants and held by a window,
for which I’m grateful. But here,
for hours each day, my back is to
the rest of me.