From somewhere to nowhere
[Art] means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage. ~Adrienne Rich
The Power Which Holds Hostage
Let us call this life what it is then—a sad landscape of small
barren hills with a lazy brook leaking through and a rickety
bridge crossing from somewhere to somewhere else.
Now place a cow with misshapen legs grazing the thin
green, a bird doing nothing on a stretch of fence that keeps
nothing in or out, a mere afterthought of poor composition.
Take this life and set before it an ordinary table plated
with common things we take in every day, porkchops
and canned peas, white bread and dying yellow butter.
Look out the window and see nothing too undifferent
from the framed scene you set yourself in every day,
the same clouds passing from east to west and back.
Now say to yourself aloud: I am here by my own choosing,
held fast by nothing more than mere will or lack of it, a
happy hostage to my own chosen sense of what is and isn’t.
barren hills with a lazy brook leaking through and a rickety
bridge crossing from somewhere to somewhere else.
Now place a cow with misshapen legs grazing the thin
green, a bird doing nothing on a stretch of fence that keeps
nothing in or out, a mere afterthought of poor composition.
Take this life and set before it an ordinary table plated
with common things we take in every day, porkchops
and canned peas, white bread and dying yellow butter.
Look out the window and see nothing too undifferent
from the framed scene you set yourself in every day,
the same clouds passing from east to west and back.
Now say to yourself aloud: I am here by my own choosing,
held fast by nothing more than mere will or lack of it, a
happy hostage to my own chosen sense of what is and isn’t.
Joseph Gallo
March 29, 2012
post-time 10:54 PM
4 Comments:
This is magnificent. With your permission, I'd like to share on facebook. Thank you for this thoughtful start to my day.
Thank you, Mamie, and yes, please share as you wish and thanks for asking. Have a great day and please continue to visit often. :-)
Thank you for this shared wisdom. It takes me way back to my philosophy classes especially as regards Rene Descartes and Albert Camus. :)
Sometimes we just have to 'reset' ourselves and reconfigure our limits -- which are mostly self-imposed anyway.
Love your observation on this, Rax. Resetting and reconfiguring. Reassessing our positions as to where we stand in both time and space.
Hope all is well with you and thanks for your lovely comment.
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