Thursday 10 February 2011

A poem by Walt Whitman....

My Picture-Gallery.
IN a little house keep I pictures suspended, it is not a fix’d house,
It is round, it is only a few inches from one side to the other;
Yet behold, it has room for all the shows of the world, all memories?
Here the tableaus of life, and here the groupings of death;
Here, do you know this? this is cicerone himself,
With finger rais’d he points to the prodigal pictures
Walt Whitman
I love this poem, it shows us how Whitman sees his mind.
Indeed, our minds are all art galleries crammed full of memories, portraits, sculptures, words mounted on plinths carved in the stone of our experiences.
Experiences too, themselves are sectioned into areas decided by us the 'cicerone'-the guide.
Some of the works we love, others we despise. Others we taste & smell. The voices of our loved ones who left us years ago echo around the gallery. Pain is boxed in tightly shut chests bound with ropes that become frayed as times goes by.
Visions & scenes from our lives & our imaginings often play through in vivid colour, some horrible, some erotic, some as funny as a Marx Brothers movie(!).
Have trip around your gallery-its open 24/7!

1 comment: