#MIDDLEBURY
The Room Is as We Left It
Marion Strobel
The room is as we left it
But mellowed to a heightened
Dignity.
The chairs
Have summer coverings
Of cobwebs,
The teakwood lamps are there,
And still the bed sags
To the center,
And the table throws
Its weight of shadow
On the spread . . . .
. . . Folly to have left the room unused:
You did not merit such a nicety . . . .
A ragged ache of light
Sifts through the dust:
Blotches
A grotesque of the present
Upon the patterns of the past . . .
My hands are bruised by surfaces
I do not see,
My fingers falter up and down
A tracery of years,
I sense the echo of a voice
I do not hear,
I am not sure the breath I hold
Is mine.
About this poem
“The Room Is as We Left It” was published in Vol. 5, No. 6 of the magazine Others, in July of 1919.
About Marion Strobel
Marion Strobel was born in 1895. Her collections of poetry include “Once in a Blue Moon” (Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1925) and “Lost City” (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1928). She died in 1967.
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.
This poem is in the public domain. Originally published in Poem-a-Day, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
