Every room has a story to tell.
Four walls,
a floor and a ceiling,
delineate, define
a cube of space,
home to memories
of lives lived
and now forgotten.
Forgotten you say?
You overlook the fact
that the walls,
layer upon layer,
retain what they have seen,
what they have heard.
Elusive ghostly shadows
fleetingly appear.
Voices clamoring to be heard
reverberate from wall to wall.
Words spoken softly,
whispered in the dark.
The labored breathing
of two people making love,
the first wails of an infant,
a child whining for food – or love,
footsteps pacing back and forth,
a woman, or a man,
waiting for a companion to return.
Words.
Sharp, accusing,
hurtful, unforgiving.
Of the lover betrayed,
of the betrayer.
Last words of a soul
on its ultimate journey.
Listen!
You need only listen.
Life itself is subsumed
in these walls.
For every room has a story to tell.
Erika Bizzarri 
Haunting and beautiful, Erika.
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Yes, listen to what suurrounds you. Was it foucault who wrote that a room is our outer skin?˜
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Erika, I’ve been slow to respond because I’ve been strolling through your rooms (or at least the concept thereof) ever since I read this piece. I couldn’t agree more with the frames of the opening and closing sentences. As you say, a room is so much more than a defined space. Even abandoned rooms still bear witness.
Your words inspired many and varied associations: the still eloquent ruined and roofless Rievaulx Abbey, the rooms of Vita Sackville West’s Sissinghurst gardens, the day we peeked through the boarded-up windows of the condemned house where my mother and I started life. Indeed, “Home to memories of lives lived” but not forgotten.
Envoyé de mon Di-Phone
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