Day 123
My Mother Ate an Elephant
My mother perched on the scaffolds
and asked me,
"How do you eat an elephant?"
I imagined garlic sauteed elephant chops
and ketchup covered elephant loaf
and elephant ears at the carnival
"One bite at a time."
So much simpler.
She turned back and kept painting
that old house that was the perfect size.
And when she'd finish a section, we'd move
the scaffolding
and she would paint another bite of the elephant.
We planted another elephant in the garden
at my great-grandfather's farm.
My mother drew the plans,
cut the wood, nailed the beams and the shingles.
Bite by bite, the new house in the garden grew.
Once, when I was home from school,
she and I wired the three way switch in the hallway,
which for a while, would only turn on
if the light in my sister's soon-to-be closet was also on.
I was up in the rafters, and she would turn the power off
while I twisted and pinched the connectors
and I'd call down that I was ready,
and she'd flip the switch and yell back
if we'd finished that bit of the elephant yet or not.
At nights, she and Dad would plan the next day,
if it would be the tail or the ears or the ribs.
While he was at work, she slowly ate that elephant.
We all touched parts of that house,
but she touched them all.
She built that home.
My mother perched on the scaffolds
and asked me,
"How do you eat an elephant?"
I imagined garlic sauteed elephant chops
and ketchup covered elephant loaf
and elephant ears at the carnival
"One bite at a time."
So much simpler.
She turned back and kept painting
that old house that was the perfect size.
And when she'd finish a section, we'd move
the scaffolding
and she would paint another bite of the elephant.
We planted another elephant in the garden
at my great-grandfather's farm.
My mother drew the plans,
cut the wood, nailed the beams and the shingles.
Bite by bite, the new house in the garden grew.
Once, when I was home from school,
she and I wired the three way switch in the hallway,
which for a while, would only turn on
if the light in my sister's soon-to-be closet was also on.
I was up in the rafters, and she would turn the power off
while I twisted and pinched the connectors
and I'd call down that I was ready,
and she'd flip the switch and yell back
if we'd finished that bit of the elephant yet or not.
At nights, she and Dad would plan the next day,
if it would be the tail or the ears or the ribs.
While he was at work, she slowly ate that elephant.
We all touched parts of that house,
but she touched them all.
She built that home.
Here's a writing-oriented comment for you, for what it's worth :)
ReplyDeleteWhen I first started reading, I thought this was just one stanza. Then I scrolled down and discovered the rest of the poem. I liked the entire poem... but I actually also liked it a lot as just that one stanza. In fact, I think I liked it more that way. It was short and sweet, said what you needed to say without hammering home the point too much, and then left it for us to think about. Okay, I'm re-reading that first part now, and actually I loved it that way.
As an entire poem, it's still good - you have nice imagery, and I like the way it ends. But since I liked it so much before I realized there was more to it, I thought I'd let you know. You might consider tweaking a few things in that first stanza and trying it out as a stand-alone poem.