Not Here

By Jane Kenyon 1947–1995 Jane Kenyon

Searching for pillowcases trimmed

with lace that my mother-in-law

once made, I open the chest of drawers

upstairs to find that mice

have chewed the blue and white linen

dishtowels to make their nest,

and bedded themselves

among embroidered dresser scarves

and fingertip towels.

Tufts of fibers, droppings like black

caraway seeds, and the stains of birth

and afterbirth give off the strong

unforgettable attar of mouse

that permeates an old farmhouse

on humid summer days.

A couple of hickory nuts

roll around as I lift out

the linens, while a hail of black

sunflower shells

falls on the pillowcases,

yellow with age, but intact.

I’ll bleach them and hang them in the sun

to dry. There’s almost no one left

who knows how to crochet lace....

The bright-eyed squatters are not here.

They’ve scuttled out to the fields

for summer, as they scuttled in

for winter—along the wall, from chair

to skirted chair, making themselves

flat and scarce while the cat

dozed with her paws in the air,

and we read the mail

or evening paper, unaware.

Source: Constance: Poems (Graywolf Press, 1993)

Biography

New Hampshire's poet laureate at the time of her untimely death at age forty-seven, Jane Kenyon was noted for verse that probed the inner psyche, particularly with regard to her own battle against the depression that lasted throughout much of her adult life. Writing for the last two decades of her life at her farm in northern New England, Kenyon is also remembered for her stoic portraits of domestic and rural life; as essayist . . .

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