| House Keeper of Time
Miranda knows the house is wandering
losing its grip on time.
Each morning, wings of swans
awake the tranquil air outside her window.
Tremors flow through glass
mingle with her warm breath
and keep that room alive.
There are too many rooms
too many centuries.
She summons a band of dreamers
to hunt the lost heart of the house.
Fragmented, they drift and settle
sip nectared memories
scatter their pollen of thoughts
from random room to room.
One dreamer says:
The house is back to front
its seasons, centuries.
It has been turned around;
as the wooden summer house
is turned to greet the sun.
Another dreamer says:
The house is upside down.
Children lived in the attic
danced on the windy roof.
Only the warmth of chimneys
invited their embrace.
The house is inside out
A wandering dreamer says:
Yew hedges tall as houses
are clipped like banks of stone
but inside they are caverns
where trolls and dragons grow.
One dreamer's hand attracts an ivory key
carved with a serpent's head
devouring its own tail.
It opens rooms where cold, lake-water light
spills through leaded glass
creeps over gilded frames
and cobwebbed butterflies.
Miranda wanders through the house.
The dreamers have all gone
She feels their voices in the air
of every darkening room
where clocks unravel silent hours
from tapestries of dream
while mirrored ghosts drift up and cry
there is no time, no time.
Christine Coleman
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