In “Two Cemeteries,” the speaker lives inside a house that is also a place of burial. Under the stairs, in a small room, his worn shoes rest after years on rough roads. In the attic, dozens of notebooks covered in his handwriting are laid to rest. He admits he cannot explain the force that binds him to these “dead things and thoughts,” but the connection feels real. Then the poem takes a tender turn: he sleeps on the first floor, between the two spaces, and calls the shoe-cemetery his feather bed and the notebook-cemetery his eiderdown. The old shoes and notebooks are not simply garbage or loss; they hold the shapes of his journeys and ideas, and at night they seem to cover and comfort him. The mood is hushed, intimate, and slightly solemn, like a private ritual for remembering a life through its worn and written leftovers.
Two Cemeteries — Summary
I have two cemeteries within my house.
One on the ground floor, in a very small room, under the stairs, where my shoes, sole wounded from their run through many rough roads rest in peace.
The other one is in the attic where dozens of my notebooks, badly scratched with my handwritings, are buried.
I know nothing about where this mysterious power comes from, yet it ties me so close with these dead things and thoughts.
However, on the first floor I sleep, and the cemetery under the stairs is my feather bed, and that in the attic is my eiderdown.