On the grand scale of things, it's not always clear what keeps the balance.
But things are not scalable. Memories hide in the smallest details and surfaces like a shy relative of long-forgotten relations:
in the color of the window-curtains from childhood,
in the taste of sgushchyonka (sweet condensed milk of my childhood),
in the sound of unwrapping a chocolate candy – the favorite one with three brown bears-cubs and their mother-bear on the cover.
The picture of four bears was from a well-known painting by Shishkin, a famous Russian painter.
Come to think of it; I'm not sure why Shishkin was so famous if the work he was mostly known for was this painting of four bears playing in the forest. Later it was discovered that Shishkin did not paint this painting, or rather he painted the forest but not the bears, because painting animals was not his forte, and he asked a friend to do it.
'Shishka' in Russian means a pinecone, but it also means a bump, as when you hit your head. It also can mean, in a slangy way, a big shot – a person in a position of power.
The painter Shishkin clearly loved Russian nature with its pinecones, but he also hit his head hard with the bears' fake authorship. He did manage to remain a big shot in the annals of Russian art.
I stopped liking these chocolates at the age of five when I discovered wriggling white worms in one. It was 'war chocolate' from the boxes of food my nanny kept in case of a new war. She had some of these boxes since WWII, some 40 years earlier.
Time was eaten by worms, leaving only crumbs behind; crumbs dressed in the picture of the cute bears painted by a man who didn't get proper credit for painting them and whose name escapes my memory right now, unlike Shishkin.
Dear Ms. Auerbach,
I don't usually come to this BAP site, but I wanted to read about my late, dear friend, Mark Strand, and I have discovered yet another wondrous prose poem by you. I love how your thoughts, so free and natural, unspool and surprise me. True poetry!
I hope you enjoy a beautiful and peaceful holiday season and a creative and healthy new year.
Respectfully yours,
Emily (Fragos)
P.S. My favorite Russian poet is Osip Mandelstam. James Greene and William S. Merwin, a truly lovely man and fine poet, did beautiful, moving translations.
Posted by: Emily Fragos | December 20, 2020 at 10:09 PM
How can I can start?
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