THE ACTUAL HOUSE

I Love You

“And we might,

in our lives,

have many thresholds

many houses

to walk out from

to view the stars,

or to turn and go back to

for warmth and company.

But the real one—the actual house

not of beams and nails

but of existence itself—

is all of earth,

with no door,

no address separate

from oceans or stars  ..."

Oliver, Mary. Upstream: Selected Essays (p. 114). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

PHOTO: LJ Austin 2024