Gertrude Abercrombie, The Past and the Present, c. 1945, The Art Institute of Chicago

Gertrude Abercrombie, The Past and the Present, c. 1945, The Art Institute of Chicago

Home is so Sad, by Philip Larkin

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft

 

And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.

 

From Collected Poems by Philip Larkin. Copyright © 1988, 2003 by the Estate of Philip Larkin.