The Small Picture
Why do people always say – focus on the big picture?
What’s so special about “the big picture?”
Unless you’re making a god damn collage.
I like the small picture.
Details. Nicks.
Iridescent. Mumbling.
Within them I see everything I need to know.
Take this little gem, for example.
Can you count the lines that mark its face?
How about the chips and cracks that claim its age?
Did you count the creases of the skin it hugs? Weathered
with traces of travels,
and god knows harboring how many secrets.
Do you wonder?
And would you believe me if I told you that every single fragment of the sea
gave away, as I threw myself onto them
and then
quietly crawled close and
pressed into me?
That each one felt like a memory yet to be claimed,
a wonder yet to be understood,
a dream faded before it was known…
Would you believe me if I said
That I actually don’t know what I’m typing half the time,
That I sometimes look away and just tap out patterns of what feels good,
That sometimes the jumble of words stare back at me, wild-eyed,
And I stare back in return, wild-eyed.
That maybe I string them together like pastel shell-shaped candies,
Into little neat stacks of
Short lines that rhyme
Just so people can
Call it poetry.
That maybe I do that just to feel the rhyme.
That maybe I do that just for an excuse to post photos of seashells.
That maybe I am a seashell.
That maybe I just want an excuse to be the girl that fumbles in seashells.
That maybe I just want to be that girl
In itty bitty little pictures.
Very nice. . . made me space out and wonder, like listening to a soft mellow melody while sitting on a beach watching the sun set.
poetry is the sincerest form of vanity.
and i like your poetry.
Atoms are highly complex structures, and look how small they are. And any good writer knows that no detail is unimportant. In music, too, my favorite interpretations are the ones that pay attention to details that are often missed, in addition to the overall structure of the piece and its emotional impact on my senses.
“That maybe I am a seashell” reminds me of Chuang Tzu not sure if he was a human dreaming he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was a human.
Grace: I think you mean ZhuangZi: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi The Butterfly Dream is an amazing poem.
According to the link you just gave me, it looks like his name can be spelled a zillion different ways (including the two ways you and I spelled it), but yeah, we’re thinking of the same person. :-)
Grace: Yeah but there’s only one correct spelling using the proper Chinese PingYing system… :)
Would you believe me if I said
That I actually don’t know what I’m typing half the time
I love those two lines. Probably because I know exatly what you mean :)
I wish more filmmakers and screenwriters thought about this, stock characters and stereotypes would be banished in favor of the particular and the spectacularly specific.
I really like the title, I don’t always get the poems though. You should write some more.
Plum
Don’t Be a Plum
great post, not sure how it got on my feed but it made me smile, thanks!
as a girl who was taught to always try to see the big picture… and was sold on that hook like and sinker… i loved this! A breath of fresh air – but, somehow, all your little glimpses that made great points and stood well on their own, still seem to speak of bigger things… whether you want them to or not. Maybe, it’s just me.. ;)
Grace: It’s only fitting to quote my favorite Blake poem here:
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
Pay no attention to Mister Smarty. This is all beautiful. XOXOXOX