Come One, Come All Fridays keep rolling around at Big Tent Poetry. Monday’s prompt was to write about possessions. The first thing I saw when I looked up was the picture hanging over my desk, and so I wrote about it.
His Legacy
In the picture, one elephant
Six blind men
The first pulls at the tail
A rope, he thinks
The second feels the leg
Aha, a tree trunk
No no, a wall, says the third
With his hand on the side
A fan, muses the fourth
Grabbing the ear
Obviously a garden hose
Declares the fifth, of the trunk
You’re all wrong, it’s a spear
The sixth vehemently protests
More than sixty years have passed
Since he drew this pen and ink sketch
It used to hang above his desk
Now it hangs above mine
And I have to wonder
Did he see himself
As one of the one of the blind men
Fumbling for the truth
Or was he the elephant
Completely inscrutable
Someone different, to each of us.
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What a nice piece of writing about the picture you look at. You’ve painted it well in words, plus asked some interesting questions.
Thanks, Mary. I look at the picture every day, and it never fails to make me smile.
I like how this poem reveals itself slowly.
Funny, that’s kind of how I wrote it. I didn’t know where I was going with it when I started.
I loved the way the poem grows into us..
half-way through
That also was unconscious.
what a wonderful read.. sounds like an enchanted picture… amazing how a picture can affect us day after day…. the eyes know nothing or is it that the eyes see everything… serene seclusion
it is amazing… I’d seen this picture for years without really noticing it– now that it’s mine, it’s taken on new meaning.
Very nice response, thought-provoking, love the way the poem turned in the second stanza.
Thanks– I’ve always wondered at the story behind the picture.
Perhaps the reverse of the story that a camel is a horse designed by a committee?! We all do see the same thing, though through very different eyes. Better to remain an enigma!
“A camel is a horse designed by a committee”– I like that! I think this picture is the reverse. 🙂
My truth, their truth, the truth. What a fascinating picture, and your portrayal of it is beautiful. It made me think.
I’m happy to hear that– I like to challenge people to think!
I very much enjoyed your lovely memory of the artist…
…my father. Thanks for a great prompt! The poems that came out of it are so rich.
Really like your poem, Cara. Like the reflective quality that is mirrored in the poem itself and your questions at the end of it. That you write, enter that field with the picture as a sort of portal into the awareness that we all see and find something different, is an awareness every writer needs to grasp. Or should, at least, attempt to. And I love the simplicity of the poem that works as another portal into the complexity of thoughts and musings of the speaker within the poem itself.
Elizabeth
I think you put it just right, Elizabeth. The picture was indeed a portal for me to enter in a contemplation of what my parents’ lives meant, and by extension, who I am.
Cara you have painted a wonderful picture with your words!
Pamela
Thank you, Pamela. Sometimes I find it best not to overthink the prompt, and just go with my first impulse, which in this case was the picture I look at every day.
Excellent observation!
Thanks!