{"id":8233,"date":"2023-02-03T23:33:14","date_gmt":"2023-02-03T23:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/?p=8233"},"modified":"2023-02-03T23:33:15","modified_gmt":"2023-02-03T23:33:15","slug":"living-with-the-elephant-a-poem-by-cynthia-bernard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/living-with-the-elephant-a-poem-by-cynthia-bernard\/","title":{"rendered":"Living with the Elephant. A Poem by Cynthia Bernard"},"content":{"rendered":"
\r\nLiving with the Elephant<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\r\nI guess the fog has little cat feet \r\nsometimes, but around here \r\nit dances with the wind,\r\nwild and fierce,\r\nespecially at dawn.\r\nHowling across the ocean, up the hill,\r\ngusting my robe against me,\r\nsloshing coffee into my face as I try for a sip.\r\n\r\nI guess aging is gradual \r\nsometimes, but around here\r\nit\u2019s a tempest, arising suddenly,\r\nwild and fierce \r\nand relentless.\r\nWrenching my days apart\r\ninto a before that can never be found \r\nagain -- and a very different now.\r\n\r\nI guess one could fight it\r\nsometimes, hair color, face cream, \r\nsupplements and potions,\r\nexercises, affirmations,\r\ndenial.\r\n\r\nI guess one could simply accept it\r\nsometimes, but around here\r\narthritis has swept in on elephant feet,\r\nfierce and relentless,\r\nand no pill, no potion,\r\nno affirmation, no meditation,\r\ncan sweep it out again.\r\n\r\nI guess one could handle things gracefully \r\nand sometimes I do,\r\nbut around here there are other times, too,\r\nwhen everything seems to hurt\r\nand I want to stay under a quilt\r\nfor whatever part of forever\r\nI get to see.\r\n\r\n\r\nAnd then again, there are\r\nyet other times, sometimes,\r\nthe majesty of the ocean at first light,\r\nthe sweetness of love found late,\r\nmy hand sliding into his.\r\nNew buds on the camellia,\r\nrain on the roof, deer in the yard,\r\ngranddaughter\u2019s smile,\r\nor a nothing-special-time\r\nin the exquisiteness of the now.\r\n\r\nAnd I find that \r\nsometimes, increasingly often,\r\nI welcome it all:\r\nthe cat\u2019s feet and the elephant,\r\nthings wild and fierce,\r\nquiet moments and raging ones,\r\nlines on my softening face, \r\ncreaky joints and aching bones,\r\nwind in my hair,\r\nfull heart,\r\nfog over the ocean at dawn.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n(This poem was originally published in Multiplicity Magazine)<\/em> <\/pre>\n
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Bio: Cynthia Bernard<\/strong> is a woman in her late 60’s who is finding her voice as a poet after many decades of silence. A long-time classroom teacher and a spiritual mentor, she lives and writes on a hill overlooking the ocean, about 20 miles south of San Francisco.
\nPublication history: Her poetry has been published in Multiplicity Magazine, The MockingOwl Roost, The Vita Brevis Press Poetry Anthology, Last Leaves Literary Magazine, Flora Fiction, fws: a journal of literature and art, <\/em>and Open Door Magazine<\/em>, and will appear in upcoming issues of Passager Journal<\/em> and The Fresh Words Magazine Anthology: Contemporary Poems 2022.<\/em><\/p>\n
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Living with the Elephant I guess the fog has little cat feet sometimes, but around here it dances with the wind, wild and fierce, especially at dawn. Howling across the ocean, up the hill, gusting my robe against me, sloshing coffee into my face as I try for a sip. I guess aging is gradual … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[996,808,796,366,401,43],"tags":[18,136,3],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8233"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8233"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8236,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8233\/revisions\/8236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}