The next picture at first glance appears to have nothing to do with the poem I've written for it, so I'll go through the thought processes that led from one to the other.
The picture shows a tramp looking at a dustbin, the lid of the bin is high in the air. The caption reads "what's in the dustbin?" The idea, I suppose, is to draw something holding the lid up there.
My first idea was for a poem called "Levitation". I had the title but no real idea of what to do with it. I started to form an idea about considering life to be something that is "up in the air", to write about how who we are and where we are isn't necessarily connected to reality, isn't grounded. The idea went nowhere but somewhere in the middle of my doodlings was this: "do not think of the ground/think only of the sky".
I added a couple of lines and then started to get the idea for what eventually became the poem below. At that stage raven and fox didn't appear in it. Then it occurred to me that I could turn it into a character exchange. From there on it only took about twenty minutes to write. Of course the stuff that went before took over a week. I hope the point of the last stanza is reasonably clear.
And in an additional change that occurred to me this morning (twelve hours after posting it ) I've changed trees to rocks which seems rather better.
So here is
The picture shows a tramp looking at a dustbin, the lid of the bin is high in the air. The caption reads "what's in the dustbin?" The idea, I suppose, is to draw something holding the lid up there.
My first idea was for a poem called "Levitation". I had the title but no real idea of what to do with it. I started to form an idea about considering life to be something that is "up in the air", to write about how who we are and where we are isn't necessarily connected to reality, isn't grounded. The idea went nowhere but somewhere in the middle of my doodlings was this: "do not think of the ground/think only of the sky".
I added a couple of lines and then started to get the idea for what eventually became the poem below. At that stage raven and fox didn't appear in it. Then it occurred to me that I could turn it into a character exchange. From there on it only took about twenty minutes to write. Of course the stuff that went before took over a week. I hope the point of the last stanza is reasonably clear.
And in an additional change that occurred to me this morning (twelve hours after posting it ) I've changed trees to rocks which seems rather better.
So here is
Teaching Fox To Fly
raven said:
the trick is this,
do not think of the cliff
think only of the air
fox said:
the cliff looks very high
raven said:
the trick is this,
do not think of the ground
think only of the sky
fox said:
the ground looks very hard
raven said:
the trick is this,
do not think of the rocks
think only of the clouds
fox said:
the rocks look very sharp
raven said:
the trick is this,
do not think of falling
think only of flying
fox said nothing
This verse is outside my normal style and I'd appreciate comment as to whether it is successful or not.
2 comments:
I think you should do more like this. This puts me in mind of a strong suspicion that I have long held - it is not the stuff we have to understand - it is the space between the stuff, without which we can never truly fathom the stuff - atoms depend on the void for existence. Not exactly what I take to be the point of the poem but I thought it sounded suitably gnomic.
Dave, you need a drink
Either that or you've had one too many already.
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