Grounded
July 5 2008


Until I left home
I slept in the basement,
in a bright yellow room
underground.

The life of the house carried-on above me,
muffled voices
creaking joists
water, pouring down through pipes.
So no one noticed me there;
padding about on the hard concrete floor,
reading in the dead of night,
my bedside lamp
unobserved.

Most of all, it was cool in summer;
and in winter, the furnace rumbled its warmth,
faithfully keeping company.
It was a back-split
so I could walk directly outdoors
— bare feet on grass
soaked with cool dew,
starlight silvering the lawn,
the city unnaturally subdued.

And here I am, decades later
in another back-split, another basement
— far too predictable in my ways.
Is it the strength of concrete,
the firm foundation?
Is it some nesting instinct,
returning to the place I know?
Or is it being grounded,
nowhere else to fall?

I get the morning sun.
But at night, it’s dark and peaceful,
and like some nocturnal creature
I burrow underground,
wrapping myself in earth.