Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Insomnia by Dana Gioia

Now you hear what the house has to say.
Pipes clanking, water running in the dark,
the mortgaged walls shifting in discomfort,
and voices mounting in an endless drone
of small complaints like the sounds of a family
that year by year you’ve learned how to ignore.

But now you must listen to the things you own,
all that you’ve worked for these past years,
the murmur of property, of things in disrepair,
the moving parts about to come undone,
and twisting in the sheets remember all
the faces you could not bring yourself to love.

How many voices have escaped you until now,
the venting furnace, the floorboards underfoot,
the steady accusations of the clock
numbering the minutes no one will mark.
The terrible clarity this moment brings,
the useless insight, the unbroken dark.

1 comment:

Mai said...

I love this poem. On the surface, it appears to be a poem simply about parts of a house. When a person sees the connection between the house and the person's relationship with their family, the meaning becomes deeper. The person's home is deteriorating, hence the complaining. He/She spent so much time focused on his possessions that they did not make time for family and happiness. Now they are lonely and losing sleep because of stress and worry that at any moment their world could fall apart.