DESERTED HOUSE
(CCONVOLVULUS was choking the small, the drear garden, Climbing the wall angled in raw brick; wounds Were gaps where birds nested. Moths in the crevices Could not escape the sparrow, the hawk hunter: All grew, hid, warred in the flesh of the old building. (Husk, one might say, abandoned to creeper: No doubt there were rats inside, and spiders.) ILL one night the light shone, gently, from the window, And o how the heart stood still, surprising The reasonable thought; there was no sense to it Save that now, where none had been, the light shone, O is this the need? Let me lie close, now feel, Who was so sure, your warm shoulder. F OR the light brought life, and I saw how the garden woke, And I knew, then, the fear of aloneness. In a world like a deserted house I was lonely; There was no light to touch to life the rank creeper, There were no loving eyes, no other footfall,
Ruth
France
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19500825.2.23
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 23, Issue 583, 25 August 1950, Page 12
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168DESERTED HOUSE New Zealand Listener, Volume 23, Issue 583, 25 August 1950, Page 12
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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