mandarins
Elizabeth Taylor
It is the curse of those who read too much. Rather than experience the world directly, things are too often filtered through metaphor and allusion. There is the orange, perfect to the point of astonishment, illuminated in a way that would make artists weep, filling the room with the bright scent of citrus.
It is a complete sensory event. It cannot in any way be improved upon. To even call attention to the wonder of the moment is, sadly, to dilute the wonder of moment. And this…this is where the curse comes in. Unasked for, uncalled and unwanted, a poem by Jacques Prévert materializes in the mind. Just for an instant, but for that instant the world is no longer about the orange; it is about the poem.
An orange on the table,
Your dress on the rug,
And you in my bed,
Sweet present of the present,
Cool of night,
Warmth of my life.
And the sweet present of the present is lost.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
