The White Room

The obvious is difficult

To prove. Many prefer

The hidden. I did, too.

I listened to the trees.

.

They had a secret

Which they were about to

Make known to me,

And then didn’t.

.

Summer came. Each tree

On my street had its own

Scheherazade. My nights

Were a part of their wild

.

Storytelling. We were

Entering dark houses,

More and more dark houses

Hushed and abandoned.

.

There was someone with eyes closed

On the upper floors.

The thought of it, and the wonder,

Kept me sleepless.

.

The truth is bald and cold,

Said the woman

Who always wore white.

She didn’t leave her room much.

.

The sun pointed to one or two

Things that had survived

The long night intact,

The simplest things,

.

Difficult in their obviousness.

They made no noise.

It was the kind of day

People describe as “perfect.”

.

Gods disguising themselves

As black hairpins? A hand-mirror?

A comb with a tooth missing?

No! That wasn’t it.

.

Just things as they are,

Unblinking, lying mute

In that bright light,

And the trees waiting for the night.

.

.

by Charles Simic

from The Book of Gods and Devils

Houghton Mifflin Harcourtt, 1990

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