It’s all dust and old newspapers and books and notebooks
Big folio registers and diaries and files
And outdoor clothes gathering dust in heaps
Never disturbed in years now
Boxes made of steel sheets
In all shapes and sizes full of old issues of magazines
Bedspreads and blankets and quilts no longer in use
It’s not a dead house but a dying one
There are smells lurking in its corners
Some dank some sunshiney full of motes
In the air caught in beams of light
From the wide old windows
It’s a shabby tired house , much suited
To slow decay , but proliferating in Calendars
Showing this month this day today
And clocks showing this hour this minute
With a little variation from the bedroom to the kitchen
From the hall to the prayer room
Food is cooked though , mostly fresh
And there is water and tea and curd and fruit
And sherbets . It waits cheerfully enough
For death and the final disintegration
It may look sad but it is not afraid .
There are flowerless flowerpots by the front door .
Few visit but those who do , do not starve
They go with bellies full .
The House of Waiting is absent- mindedly
Sprawlingly , lazily , impersonally kind .
( Amita Sarjit Ahluwalia )
A deeply evocative piece suffused with an ineluctably wistful air.
Contemporary realites powerfully etched take us to the haphazard ways in which we lead our lack luster days in these difficult times .
Thank you for your thoughts on this poem Madhumathy
Thank you for your thoughtful appreciation, Louis Kasatkin
So redolent of homes which breathed of life but slowly as the number of habitants dwindled and the owner ages dusty shelves and empty pots remain as remnants of the past glory.
Thank you Bilquis Fatima for describing in your own beautiful words what the poem has conveyed to you and what is its spirit and reality
….outdoor clothes gathering dust in heaps
Never disturbed in years now….
This poem describes the standstill set over the house but some liveliness in the kitchen …. And endless wait for the final verdict …. The calendar and clock doing their job perfect…
Thank you Swati Gadgil for describing your understanding of the poem
Of course you would notice that the eccentric clocks in the house of waiting do not all show the same time
AS IT IS SAID A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME WHEN THERE IS NO ONE SITTING THERE,,,WAITING AND WANTING TO FILL A DAY WITH HOURS OF LIFE…
Thank you for the interesting comment , Suzette Portes San Jose
The house is clearly not empty with all that cooking going on , and though it is waiting for the for the end it is sturdily cheerful