A mind built with many rooms is made

 

to keep searching for houses to arrange them in,

wonder how those rooms will seduce a guest

to enter, sit, sleep or amble about,

and who’s to say a mind cannot covet

as many houses as it must have

for all the chandeliers, tapestries

and object d’ars it can hoard?

 

Otherwise, as for a mind

that craves something more,

rooms in a single house

would lay out as furniture stores,

art galleries or thrift shops,

and who lives in crowded closets

except spiders?

 

A Queen Ann chair doesn’t sit comfortably

next to a Japanese settee or Bavarian bench,

nor do Persian carpets like to roll out

onto the glistening white tile of a villa

reaching to infinity pools

 

A castle wants turrets,

great halls, massive fireplaces;

nostalgia, a hearth, nooks,

sagging old sofas, antique mirrors

with jolly ghosts

 

The mind built with many rooms

keeps searching for landscapes where

people can live out their stories,

where daydreams call for palm trees,

natural grasses and boulders,

rambling gardens and fountains

for Victorians in the country

 

 

Who’s to say

there can be only one house;

why not five or seven or twelve,

and hedges blooming around cottages,

or ranch styles, geodesics, yurts,

a last house, a farm house

with circular porches, stables,

waterfalls, ponds?

 

Old men need recliners for cogitating

in a room softened by a fire;

women boudoirs to haunt,

walk-ins for wardrobes

 

Some rooms ask for leaded glass,

some glitz, masterpieces dominating walls;

others call for footstools, alcoves

with elaborate lamps on precious tables

 

There must be views from cliffs some days,

the glitter of the sea in a year or two,

footbridges leading into forests,

balconies for cityscapes,

decks overlooking mountain ranges

 

One night’s a night to sleep

wrapped only in a blanket on manicured grass

under an elaborate arboretum

below stars with no solution;

 

another’s a gilded bedroom

shuttered against the dark,

its louvers bright enough at dawn

to send sun streaks across a demilune,

 

and with them a curious set of sudden plans

for a cabin away from everything

where the eye can be dazzled

by a spirited blue gill spinning skyward

from the silver surface of a morning lake

 

 

 

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