In The House Of My Home Poem by Dónall Dempsey

Here, in the rooms
of my childhood

I, an adult now

walk through memory
made real again

amazed at how small
the Past is
(to my Present self)

I thought these rooms
immense

& now they shrink
before my shadow

climbing the stairs

the shadow of
my footfall

this old house
no longer mine
(except in my mind)

echoing with footsteps

as I walk
through my tears

& see the dead arise
To greet me

as if they were not
dead

& how
they exist

inside me

living still
as my beating heart

these walls once knew me
& still remember me

as they touch my fingertips
touching them

(almost believing)

that the opening door
will still bring

me

you.


(For Brian...’cos he knows)