WE TIPTOED AROUND

Happy Solstice. It was overcast and damp here, so there are no photographs of this year's first sun. I am going through a period of rewrites, my attention is on what I have already written. You can read the last incarnation of today's poem here. I thought, upon rereading, that it was clumsily laid out. This led me to making a number of changes.

ELEPHANT ORNAMENTS

My father would have none of it

“China elephants as holiday gifts?

Oh no, they always bring bad luck.”

And who would openly court misfortune?

When a child there were moments

I sensed elephants in the living room

the drum taut tension of things unsaid

We tiptoed around their slumbering forms.

Usually I try to pare any poem back as far as I can but this one seemed too bare. I felt I needed to highlight who was speaking, to differentiate the opinion holder from the narrator. I do not think it is finished...

I leave you with a seasonal Alela.

Until next time.