Lines 1-6

The main ideas of "The Horizons of Rooms" are introduced in the poem's first line, with a sharp directness that serves to catch readers off guard. The poem uses the familiar, comfortable word "room," but it quickly makes clear that it means more by this word than the way that it is commonly used. Readers can tell that they need to think in broader terms when the poem tells them that rooms have existed "for such a short time": "Such" usually limits "a short time" to seconds or minutes, but such an idea conflicts with any possible definition of "rooms." Rooms have been around for a long time, and calling their existence short draws a comparison to the time before recorded history when humans did not live indoors at all. This idea sets the poem in historical terms of centuries and eons, broadening the idea of...