Notes About The Poem
This poem a compassionate subversion of childhood bedtime fears, transforming the void beneath the bed into a repository of the human condition, a universal human experience.
Quiet Beneath
The floorboards creak beneath the weight of moonbeams,
And shadows stretch their fingers, long and thin,
To touch the dust that gathers in the quiet,
Where all the day’s discarded ghosts begin.
Reagan*, you know the hollow feeling,
When silence settles heavy on the room,
And peering down beyond the mattress borders,
You search the darkness in the midnight gloom.
It is not monsters with their sharp-edged shadows,
Or pointed teeth that wait to pull you down,
But piles of books you promised you would finish,
And shirts left crumpled like a discarded crown.
There lies the evidence of being human—
A single sock that lost its better half,
A dusty box of letters tied in ribbon,
That hold a younger version’s desperate laugh.
The under-bed is archive and confessional,
A sanctuary built of lint and shade,
Where worries shed their armor in the darkness,
And plans for tomorrow begin to fade.
It holds the blueprints of a weary traveler,
The heavy boots that walked the miles today,
And tangled cords of thoughts you couldn’t settle,
Before the sun stole all the light away.
So, Reagan, when night pulls tight the curtains,
Don’t fear the void that waits beneath the frame;
It is just a mirror of your own persistence,
A quiet space that does not ask your name.
The dust bunnies are merely quiet witnesses,
To every dream you’ve dared to hold and keep,
While you, within the comfort of the blankets,
Find solace in the deep and human sleep.
* Granddaughter
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