By order of the remaining heirs.
SALE
For sale: by order of the remaining heirs
Who ran up and down the big center stairs
The what-not, the settee, the Chippendale chairs
—And an attic of horrors, a closet of fears.
The furniture polished and polished so grand,
A stable and paddock, some fox-hunting land,
The summer house shaped like a village band stand
—And grandfather’s sinister hovering hand.
The antimacassar for the sofa in red,
The Bechstein piano, the four-poster bed,
The library used as a card room instead
—And some watery eyes in a Copley head.
The dining room carpet dyed brighter than blood,
The table where everyone ate as he should,
The sideboard beside which a tall footman stood
—And a fume of decay that clings fast to the wood.
The hand-painted wall-paper, finer than skin,
The room that the children had never been in,
All the rings and the relics encrusted with sin
—And the taint in a blood that was running too thin.
–Theodore Roethke
Chatter Random Friday poem of the month Sale Theodore Roethke
Hi Dana! This has nothing to do with the excellent Roethke poem posted above. Rather, I’m using this space to ask a question that’s been eating at me for many years.. Did you write something in which the detective, a woman, is out in the woods with an expert tracker whose technique involves “tracking with the heart” — recognizing discrepancies in your own heartbeat as the first signal that you’ve subliminally spotted something significant? I can’t remember where I found it — it was back in the mid-90s, I think — but I’d love to read it again. Someone suggested it might have been from a book of yours, and I’m finally getting around to asking you directly.
No, Andrea, that’s not one of mine. It sounds like something I’d like to read, too!