The subject of Big had me reach for Niki de Saint Phalle’s Oracle from her Tarot Garden. She is the grandest I know.
Sometimes
I’m confronted with it
So big
So far to go
This is how Patrick begins his poem for this week’s Pic and a Word challenge. And towards the end he writes this truth:
Wherever I get
That will have to be
Far enough
In the south of Tuscany there is the Tarot Garden (Il giardino dei tarocchi) with sculptures of tarot cards by Niki de Saint Phalle. I wrote about the Devil yet. But now here is her.
The Oracle
is a she.
She has snakes for hands
and she is big enough and wise enough
to make father cautiously apprehensive
and mother mimic her.
Some stay the hell away
yet sister feels inspired
while I spy on her at first
keep a tree between us
but then approach from behind
and realise that
– like so many fears, promises and beliefs –
she is hollow too
with a cosy little spot
red and shiny
like the inside of the womb
for weary travellers through life
to rest and wait
to turn into what
they are to become
in order to die.
In response to Patrick Jennings’ Pic and a Word Challenge #143: Big
I love the she-ness of your poem, expressed in so many ways. I do not like the oracle, her eyes frighten me. Maybe that is her point, looking into the future is scary and prone to interpretation and uncertainty, maybe it is better not to know?
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Hmm, interesting, Claudia, thank you! They are a bit hollow, aren’t they, just like her body. Well, what if they are only a decoy? And the real eyes are the ones on the snake?
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Yes. that is making sense to me. I do like the idea, the snake as the manifestation of her prophetic powers…I do have the dim idea that the Greek oracle could not see with her actual eyes but with her inner eyes, but I could be making that up.
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Indeed… the blind shall see.
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Those dead eyes are scary!
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Ahh, sorry that you see scary, SMSW. I only see missing because they are somewhere else. 🙂
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Amazing. I like Nikki de St-Phalle’s work. Quite unique.
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Thank you, Equinoxio. This garden is 15 minutes from me and I go every free first Saturday in winter months that I can. She was quite something. And got sick on lungs working with toxic materials. 😦
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Giardino dei tarochi? Má? E Itlaiana lei? 🙂
I didn’t know the cause of her death. Strangely I though she had committed suicide. What a shame. She was a great artist.
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Io Italiana? Ma nooo. I’m Slovenian but have been living here in my corner of Tuscany for five years now. Yes, she died of emphysema, polyester killed her, her work. Shame indeed.
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Slovenian? 🙂 That is nice. (Though I speak not a word of Slovenian… need to work on it.) 😉
Nikki de Saint-Phalle left her work. And that is forever.
Arrivederci…
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Very different installation and poem, Mexi!
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Thank you, Amanda. It just rolled out like that. 🙂 I see the ending not as bad at all as some feel. Was it Jung who said that our task in life was to become the person we are when we die?
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Perhaps it was, Jung. Some of his quotes are timeless and profound. I shall have to read a bit more of his writings.
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I thought your poem was going to have a happy ending, until I read the last line, which is quite sombre! Oh well, I still like it 🙂
Did anyone climb inside the cosy spot?
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Thank you, Pistachios. I wasn’t planning to end it this way, it just rolled out like this. I was reminded of Jung who said (something like) that our task in life is to become the persons we are when we die. Whether it’s sombre or not to die is another matter, but we better stop calling it that since we all will do it one day. I think one time I climbed inside it with bestia but he wasn’t all too happy about it.
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I think I’ve heard that quote before too. Such wise words! Not so sombre after all
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<smile> She’s pretty… and big!
I love the way you turn something scary into a possibility, a hope, a future. =)
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Thank you, Patrick. 🙂 Ahh, so she is scary to you too! Not to me! I feel she is on my side and wishes me well. It was fun to let myself be swayed her way.
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Mmmm… to me? More creepy than scary. I mean, snakes for hands? But once you get to know her, through your eyes and words… she grows on you. 😉
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