In this difficult time, many of us have been urged to stay at home. This can be difficult for many, as this is not only a change in routine, but it is also a change to how we once interacted with the world around us. That isn’t easy. Regardless of if you are an introvert or an extrovert, a sudden change in routine is jarring.
When I find myself struggling with what is going on around me, I have a tendency to turn towards the stories and poems that I feel are comforting. While I can’t say that everyone does the same, or that my way even works, this is my way of processing the difficult emotions that I come up against.
So, with that in mind, here are five poems about the comforts of home.
1. “home” by Edgar Albert Guest
image via wikimedia commons
It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home,
A heap o’ sun an’ shadder, an’ ye sometimes have t’ roam
Afore ye really ’preciate the things ye lef’ behind,
An’ hunger fer ’em somehow, with ’em allus on yer mind.
It don’t make any differunce how rich ye get t’ be,
How much yer chairs an’ tables cost, how great yer luxury;
It ain’t home t’ ye, though it be the palace of a king,
Until somehow yer soul is sort o’ wrapped round everything. (read more)
2. “A home” by sarah c. woolsey
image via stocksy united
What is a home? A guarded space,
Wherein a few, unfairly blest,
Shall sit together, face to face,
And bask and purr and be at rest?
Where cushioned walls rise up between
Its inmates and the common air,
The common pain, and pad and screen
From blows of fate or winds of care?
Where Art may blossom strong and free,
And Pleasure furl her silken wing,
And every laden moment be
A precious and peculiar thing? (read more)
3. “in praise of my bed” by meredith holmes
image via videohive
At last I can be with you!
The grinding hours
since I left your side!
The labor of being fully human,
working my opposable thumb,
talking, and walking upright. (read more)
4. “dog in bed” by joyce sidman
image via dogtime
Nose tucked under tail,
you are a warm, furred planet
centered in my bed.
All night I orbit, tangle-limbed,
in the slim space
allotted to me.
If I accidentally
bump you from sleep,
you shift, groan,
drape your chin on my hip. (read more)
5. “From a rooftop” by timothy steele
image via smartcity press
At dawn, down in the streets, from pavement grills,
Steam rises like the spent breath of the night.
At open windows, curtains stir on sills;
There’s caging drawn across a market’s face;
An empty crane, at its construction site,
Suspends a cable into chasmed space.
The roof shows other rooftops, their plateaus
Marked with antennas from which lines are tied
And strung with water beads or hung with clothes.
And here and there a pigeon comes to peck
At opaque puddles, its stiff walk supplied
By herky-jerky motions of its neck. (read more)
Featured image via Apartment Therapy
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