Such is life
each rubber band
a predatory
ampersand
stuck in wadded
and
and
and
you try to peel
it bites your hand
entangled elastic
each discrete
yet all of a piece
inexplicably neat.
More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.
Oddments
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October 22, 2021 at 10:52 am
Rubber bands or life, it seems pretty similar. 🙂 I hope life is not snapping at you this Friday. 🙂
October 22, 2021 at 11:48 am
At this moment, I have life under control, thanks: a big cup of good coffee, layers of flannel, and space heater humming. I hope the same for you!
October 22, 2021 at 12:14 pm
Yes, we’ve reached the clothing layer season, and we’ve certainly run our electric fireplaces several days. Happy Friday!
October 22, 2021 at 12:31 pm
Thanks, Judy, and the same to you!
October 22, 2021 at 12:49 pm
Untangling life’s constricting bands can be difficult. I would need much coffee.
I hope you have a great weekend. Maureen.
October 22, 2021 at 2:33 pm
Thanks! You too, Dan! As for untangling life’s bands, yes, coffee to the rescue. Maybe pie.
October 23, 2021 at 5:31 pm
In ‘and and and’ you have the perfect description, although I confess to wondering where you were going when I read ‘a predatory ampersand’.
October 23, 2021 at 5:34 pm
Did it eventually make sense? I realize sometimes my words are like those rubberbands and are all neatly wound only to me!
October 23, 2021 at 6:02 pm
An interesting exercise whether I largely took what you intended – here goes! First I read for the sense:
Life is like this ball of rubber bands that have accumulated in a predatory way, each band stuck together to make a solid, but giving (wadded) whole (the and and and being a symbolic few of the many bands layered to make a whole, so explaining the earlier ampersand, that being apt as a wrapped up squiggle, like the bands). Then you remind us that when you try to remove them, you might get bitten by a snapped or twanging band (little fingers usually being in play here) and you finish with two apt contrasts: entangled but neat, whole but discrete.
Then, to be truthful, in a not entirely thought out way, I briefly considered how that relates to life. Certainly each life’s a tightly bound accumulation too, of thoughts, events, people – you name it. Then I remembered that removing a band could be painful, but I did not want to push that thought. Then I returned to predatory and struggled a touch, concluding that the band is predatory because it shrinks or snaps to fit.
October 23, 2021 at 6:59 pm
What a wonderful help to me as a writer! I think I’ve never had anyone articulate thoughts like that on any kind of poem I’ve tried. You were right with me. I was captivated by these layers and how they all glommed together neatly. And how sometimes, if we try to pull one part of our lived life out, it snaps at us to be left as is while at the same time taunting us to pull (thus “predatory”). I do love “wrapped up squiggle” — thank you so much!
Now I wonder if Bill had any of these thoughts when he took the photo or if it were just a ball of rubberbands. The inscrutable photographer.
October 23, 2021 at 8:01 pm
I imagine he did not know exactly where you would take it, but knew it would be somewhere!