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Living Things

by Fiona Robyn 

Posted: 31 July 2005
Word Count: 147


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Living things

I have carried living things in my hands all week, sneaked up on
daddy-long-legs, pulled them off painted walls and held their brittle bodies.
I’ve picked up blue-black beetles like shiny stones, moved them
from inside rooms to out; they stick to my thumb, they seem
happy enough to cling on. Best of all, the two young frogs
who’d come onto the kitchen tiles to see what they could find.
I watched them bending their tiny legs, toothpick bones inside,
felt their rubbery skin against mine as they pushed away, they were amazing.
I have held living things in my hands all week, knowing
if I wanted I could close the space between my fingers.
And I think how it might have been for those two frogs, to be lifted up
so high, so fast: and when the light comes back they could be anywhere.






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Comments by other Members



paul53 [for I am he] at 12:27 on 31 July 2005  Report this post
This is an interesting piece, making us wonder about life seen through the eyes of other creatures.
It reminded me of something said by Grace Slick, former singer with Jefferson Airplane and Starship, who had an encounter with a racoon at her back door. What she recalled vividly from it was that the racoon went up on its hind legs, grasped her finger with a paw, and then looked up straight into her eyes as slowly studied her. It was a real point of contact that stayed with her.

Ticonderoga at 15:30 on 02 August 2005  Report this post
A Ray Bradbury fan!! Good start. (peeked at your profile as you're new)

This is beautiful - thoughtful, gentle and wise. I could take even more of this line; since you're not anthropomorphising, but making a genuine leap of the imagination, why not explore the sensations of the other living things you've saved and carried and released? I love what's here, but feel it could happily expand quite a bit.
Welcome to WW!


best,

Mike




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