Poem-A-Day: Room in Antwerp by Laure-Anne Bosselaar

Room in Antwerp by Laure-Anne Bosselaar     Dust covers the window, but light slips through-- it always does--through dust or cracks or under doors. Every day at dusk, the sun, through branches, hits a river's bend & sends silver slivers to the walls.                          No one's there to see this. No one. But it dances there anyway, that light,          & when the wind weaves waves into the water  it's as if lit syllables quivered on the bricks.          Then the sun sinks, swallowed by the dark. In that dark  more dust, always more dust                          settles--sighs over everything.  There is no silence there, something always stirs  not far away. Small rags of noise.  Rilke said most people will know only a small corner of their room.  I read this long ago & still don't know how to understand  that word only, do you?                          Where are you? I think of you so often   and search for you in every face that comes between me & dust,  me & dusk--first love, torn corner from this life.        Copyright © 2013 by Laure-Anne Bosselaar. Used with permission of the author.     About This Poem "Not long ago I re-read a poem I return to often, 'The Previous Occupant' by Agha Shahid Ali, and it made me think of the fate of those lit places we leave behind as we move on with our lives--or because of our lives. I wrote this poem remembering a tiny room I loved very much, on the top floor of an old house in Antwerp, near the Scheldt river."    --Laure-Anne Bosselaar Most Recent Book by Bosselaar A New Hunger (Ausable Press, 2007)   May 30, 2013 Laure-Anne Bosselaar is the author of three books of poetry. Her most recent is A New Hunger (Ausable Press, 2007). She is also a translator of poetry, working in Flemish and French. Bosselaar teaches at Pine Manor College. Related Poems Gradeschool's Large Windows by Thomas Lux Affirmation by Donald Hall Burning the Old Year by Naomi Shihab Nye Poem-A-Day Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-A-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on  weekdays and classic poems  on weekends. Browse the  Poem-A-Day Archive.     Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.

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