0012 The House Of Metaphor

After you’ve negotiated that artfully-conceived sharp elbow bend in the long, grand drive through the fields of its estate, and it hoves into view, you always gasp – this palace - no, more like a temple with living quarters – set deep in the countryside, yet as sure as one in Athens or in Rome; yet that too is artfully contrived - the slight mound it’s built on, the cunning proportion that magnifies, disguises, with its public face the aptness of a family home; its public rooms so grand, just echoing enough to magnify a public speech; its family rooms smallish, cosy; love and friendliness live here. It says to the world, stability; tradition re-affirmed; yet this is our familiar family home. It has its rooms, as rooms should be, devoted to each family pursuit: here’s the grand library but here, with books so evidently, lovingly well read; you almost missed the little girl, her hair and knees curled round a book, deep in that leather green armchair; the study, where your breathing seems to change, there’s such a still and living silence here; the nursery that emanates a lifetime’s care; the children’s bedrooms set around it, through which you ran and laughed and ran again; the window seats from which you looked so wistfully as childhood’s assurance faded into teenage questioning; a house to leave, a house to come back to; a metaphor as living, haunting, as the poetry it is.