Poetry Friday — Houses

Posted

So, lest you think that things are all loveliness and light over here at our house (I mean, I highly doubt you think that but just in case), I have an admission to make.

Yesterday, we found an Easter egg.
From last Easter.
In our living room.

It was still bright pink on the outside.

And on the inside… what? You didn’t think we’d just toss it without taking advantage of the biological science experiment that is our housekeeping? 

On the inside, a brown, sawdusty-like powder.
Not unlike a seriously thick season or two of, um, dust.
When in Rome? Sigh…

So then I got to thinking about what to write.
And believe me, I came up with plenty of self-deprecating possibilities.
I mean, c’mon. We have had a hard-boiled egg sitting just barely hidden in our living room for eight months and we didn’t notice?! Maybe I should just go ahead and write the notes of apology and explanation for my daughters’ future therapists’ files and be done with it.

Nah. I’m the queen of filling the half-empty cup with a little rose-colored denial. So somehow I’m ready to turn this Easter egg situation into a mi casa es su casa post. (I know, it takes a true talent to wander off point like this.)

But really, here’s how it works. I find an egg in my house and I figure ya’ll have the odd mess at your house, too. (Can you just let me carry on this way for awhile?) And then there are the less tangible messes, the moral and emotional messes, the mucked up communications and spilled compassion. In houses everywhere. 

We’re in it together, friends. Eggs and all.

At least that’s what Rudyard Kipling says. 

The Houses
1898 — A Song of the Domnions

‘Twixt my house and thy house the pathway is broad,
In thy house or my house is half the world’s hoard;
By my house and thy house hangs all the world’s fate,
On thy house and my house lies half the world’s hate.

For my house and thy house no help shall we find
Save thy house and my house — kin cleaving to kind;

(Read the rest here…)

I’m grateful for Poetry Friday. What about you?
 

48 Responses to “Poetry Friday — Houses”

  1. carriejones

    You can definitely keep imagining little messes at my house.
    I can’t believe you looked at the egg. You’re terribly brave.

  2. jamarattigan

    Great minds think alike! I posted today about what’s in MY house! No Easter eggs, but stuff from the Paleolithic Period. Messes abound. But you know what they say: Always be suspect of someone with a neat desk (or clean house).

  3. Anonymous

    TadMack says:

    I CANNOT IMAGINE OPENING IT.
    Okay, I cannot imagine opening it INSIDE, anyway.
    But yeah, I guess you’d want to know. Who’d a thunk it would be powdery? I would think it would have exploded, but I guess that’s raw.

    Eew.

    There’s balls of dust on the floor at my house — my grandmother helpfully called them “slut’s wool.”

    !!

    • liz_scanlon

      Re: TadMack says:

      Slut’s wool. How fascinating. That belongs in a poem, TadMack. Maybe not for our youngest readers, but y’know…

    • liz_scanlon

      Re: Karen Edmisten said:

      It was just too tempting! I only wish we’d been able to track the whole thing for science fair…

  5. saralholmes

    “I’m the queen of filling the half-empty cup with a little rose-colored denial.” That makes me laugh. And the egg does too. Of course, the egg does. But YOU, blogging about the egg? Heavenly.

  6. no_bodys_doll

    “Max,” said Ruby. “Something’s in your underwear drawer that should not be there. This Easter egg is from last year, Max!”

    I read that line many times when I taught three’s: they were really into Rosemary Well’s Max Cleans Up. And that’s exactly what I thought when I read your post. You’re certainly brave for opening it; even Max didn’t do that…

    • liz_scanlon

      And you’d have thunk Max would’ve, don’t you think?
      It wasn’t really that bad.
      It would’ve been worse a few months ago, I’m sure of it…

  7. annemariepace

    I haven’t found a year-old egg in my house–but I would have no trouble believing that I could. I’m sure there are equally interesting things laying around . . . well, maybe not equally interesting, but certainly equally old and yucky.

  8. Anonymous

    I have found year old Easter eggs in my house too; but they were the plastic kind filled with chocolate. How my boys missed them I have no idea. We ate the chocolate when we found them, of course. 🙂

    Kipling is right on the money.

  9. hipwritermama

    All biological science experiments have been banned from inside my house, ever since I found an old sippy cup filled with who knows how old juice underneath a dresser. It was not pretty.

    I love how you tied everything up in a bow and handed it to us, with companionship and empathy overriding the mess. Great post.

  10. kellyrfineman

    You sure see the world through rose-colored Easter eggs.

    I liked the Kipling poem (it must be out of copyright, no?). And your story, of course.