House Empty Speaks a Loud Truth, 2018
for Charmian Kittredge London
1. House made of breath exhaled from wooden ribs.
2. Dale Carnegie’s name scribbled on a cream closet door.
3. A nautilus shell eating a light bulb sheds the softest light.
4. Calabashes painted grey sway from their ropes whenever the earth shakes. (Someone tried to mute their color).
5. She designed the house so that it would never burn.
6. The rock patio has a pyramid-shaped staircase that leads up and over the edge.
7. Left unattended, I slid every window latch open, shimmied through sliding doors.
8. You could hear the red-breasted robins singing from the second floor.
9. The silver painted wallpaper came off on my fingertips.
10. What they thought was a guest room was actually her office.
11. When the state cataloged the house, everyone forgot she was a writer.
12. It never burned.
13. Bays and oaks move closer to the house. (Hear their leaves whisper?)
14. Though they'll cover the fountain in the sun-filled dining room, its waters will keep broadcasting to future visitors.
Copyright © 2021 by Iris Jamahl Dunkle. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 8, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.
“The House of Happy Walls located in Glen Ellen, California, was the home Charmian built for herself after her husband, Jack London died. After she died, the home and the surrounding ranch was donated to the state park. But, even though it was Charmian’s home, the museum barely told her story. A few years ago, when it was being remodeled it was emptied and I got the opportunity to walk through it. I found all kinds of treasures, like her old fold-out desk in a room the park had previously called her guest room (that was actually an office). I wrote this poem about the powerful experience of seeing Charmian Kittredge London written back into her own home.”
—Iris Jamahl Dunkle
Iris Jamahl Dunkle
Iris Jamahl Dunkle's latest poetry collection is West : Fire : Archive (The Center for Literary Publishing at Colorado State University, 2021). She is also the author of Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer (The University of Oklahoma Press, 2020). Dunkle teaches at Napa Valley College and UC Davis and is the Poetry and Translation Director at the Napa Valley Writers' Conference.