Safe Home

Don't you love it that this birdhouse
has it's own birdhouse?

As Susan Stewart says of the miniature: 
"...what we look for is the dollhouse within the dollhouse
and its promise of an infinitely profound interiority." (61)

"Safe house. Saying the words to myself in secret.
For safe house made me smile.
Safe house made me feel warm.
Safe house was something small you could hide in, I thought.
Like a dollhouse where if you were small enough to fit inside
you would be so small nobody would come looking for you." (61)

from
Black Girl / White Girl (2006)
Joyce Carol Oates

These touching lines from Oates' novel
reminded me to re-read some previous favorites,
written by my friend Jan Donley and posted a few years back:

"Washington Street"
"But something about that house on Washington Street calls you,
reminds you of something you just cannot name.
You see it in her eyes when you look at the photo.
You want someone to tell you the story of that house and her in it.
You were there, yet you need someone to tell the story."

@ Picture of Home

&

"House"
"You hold the house in the palm of your hand—a triangle roof
and a square base. No windows. No doors. Just the shape. Simple.
The house a child would draw if you said, 'Draw a house.'"

@ Whatnots

@ The House You're Standing In . . .
or Holding in the Palm of Your Hand