"I barked cheerfully and very loudly"
May your forks and spoons feel like comfortable friends today. May your bowl be full.
Art: "Cosmetic Spoon in the Shape of Swimming Woman Holding a Dish." ca. 1390–1352 B.C.
Four Very Fat Legs
by Anna Swir
I am jolly as if I were
very fat.
As if I had four
very fat legs. As if I jumped very high
on my four very fat legs.
As if I barked
cheerfully and very loudly
with those four very fat legs.
That’s how jolly I am today.
The Greatest Love
by Anna Swir
She is sixty. She lives
the greatest love of her life.
She walks arm-in-arm with her dear one,
her hair streams in the wind.
Her dear one says:
“You have hair like pearls.”
Her children say:
“Old fool.”
by Anna Swir, from Happy as a Dog’s Tail (1985), Harcourt. Translated by Czesław Miłosz & Leonard Nathan.
Creative Invitations
Write in the voice of an animal you know well.
Complain about yourself in the voice of a dear friend.
Praise someone you don’t like very much.
If your long-ago companion animal returned from the afterlife as a utensil, plant or household object, so they could still be close to you, which utensil, plant or household object would they be? Write it, draw it or make it out of clay.
I do though see that these fat legs belong to the dog narrator!
I love the line…I barked cheerfully and loudly…
I wonder how the references to very fat legs resonates with someone who struggles with their weight? There’s a current fascination with little ceramic figures of jolly fat” women, usually in bathing suites and on the beach. I wonder…