for Rene Magritte <br /> <br />The carpenter's made a hole <br />In the parlor floor, and I'm standing <br />Staring down into it now <br />At four o'clock in the evening, <br />As Schliemann stood when his shovel <br />Knocked on the crowns of Troy. <br /> <br />A clean-cut sawdust sparkles <br />On the grey, shaggy laths, <br />And here is a cluster of shavings <br />>From the time when the floor was laid. <br />They are silvery-gold, the color <br />Of Hesperian apple-parings. <br /> <br />Kneeling, I look in under <br />Where the joists go into hiding. <br />A pure street, faintly littered <br />With bits and strokes of light, <br />Enters the long darkness <br />Where its parallels will meet. <br /> <br />The radiator-pipe <br />Rises in middle distance <br />Like a shuttered kiosk, standing <br />Where the only news is night. <br />Here's it's not painted green, <br />As it is in the visible world. <br /> <br />For God's sake, what am I after? <br />Some treasure, or tiny garden? <br />Or that untrodden place, <br />The house's very soul, <br />Where time has stored our footbeats <br />And the long skein of our voices? <br /> <br />Not these, but the buried strangeness <br />Which nourishes the known: <br />That spring from which the floor-lamp <br />Drinks now a wilder bloom, <br />Inflaming the damask love-seat <br />And the whole dangerous room. <br /> <br /> <br />Submitted by Robert Fish<br /><br />Richard Wilbur<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-hole-in-the-floor/
