I go there more often of late
without much forethought,
Follow down the yellow corridors
stone and cold and swept to a shine
by dusters on cloistered feet.
Past the hall, echoing songs, a ballet class
films on winter evenings.
Drawn to the smell of laundry, lines of it
hung to the ceiling. Uniform.
There too the high stairs fly,
linoleumed for foot stepping hordes
the chambered passageways untroubled.
Just rooms of words spelled haltingly
the hum of sewing and sums
boxed in their tables
murmured out like mantras.
And higher still, neat rows of beds
curtained with ghosts that rock
gently to and fro, with no one to see.
There I never go now but turn away,
out past the kitchen garden, hedged
sweet with privet flowers and nests
through the door where all the little children
sat, all in brown with a sacred heart
pinned to their chest
or ran, swung, skipped to songs
and threw sand, crying and laughing
in the four walled concrete playground.
Bulldozers broke the hermitic convent door
red bricks tumbled, burying an incensed chapel,
the sick bay, kitchens, a rose garden
so too the grotto where snails painted
pretty whirls on pale shells.
I go there more often of late
just to rebuild.
For her Poetics prompt: Buildings, Kim prompts us to write a poem conjuring one, piece by piece
PoetryPix 