Sleeping on the Ceiling

It is so peaceful on the ceiling!
It is the Place de la Concorde.
The little crystal chandelier
is off, the fountain is in the dark.
Not a soul is in the park.

Below, where the wallpaper is peeling,
the Jardin des Plantes has locked its gates.
Those photographs are animals.
The mighty flowers and foliage rustle;
under the leaves the insects tunnel.

We must go under the wallpaper
to meet the insect-gladiator,
to battle with a net and trident,
and leave the fountain and the square.
But, oh, that we could sleep up there …

This is one of Elizabeth Bishop’s early poems taken from her first collection ‘North and South’  ‘Sleeping on the Ceiling’ has her characteristically fresh take on a familiar situation. Bishop has the knack of bringing out the strangeness that is to be found in familiar things. Her ‘Complete Poems’ published by Chatto and Windus scoops up her whole lifetime’s work in a single slimmish volume and is a ‘must’ on any poetry bookshelf.