Things

Lisel Mueller

(1924 - 2020)

Things

What happened is, we grew lonely

living among the things,

so we gave the clock a face,

the chair a back,

the table four stout legs

which will never suffer fatigue.

We fitted our shoes with tongues

as smooth as our own

and hung tongues inside bells

so we could listen

to their emotional language,

and because we loved graceful profiles

the pitcher received a lip,

the bottle a long, slender neck.

Even what was beyond us

was recast in our image;

we gave the country a heart,

the storm an eye,

the cave a mouth

so we could pass into safety.

At some point in school children are taught about "personification." The poem could do the job quite well. It seems to have stood the test of time, as you can check out this reading by a member of the Tik Tok generation.

About the poet:

Poet and translator Lisel Mueller was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1924. The daughter of teachers, she and her family were forced to flee the Nazi regime when Mueller was 15. They immigrated to the US and settled in the Midwest. She worked as a literary critic and taught at the University of Chicago, Elmhurst College and Goddard College.