"tongs" poems - Hello Poetry

As I sit here, at the dining room table and stare over decaf coffee at the screen on my Mac my eyes are drawn, once and awhile, to the picture sitting on the buffet in the butler's pantry. Before we continue you should know that "butler's pantry" in this case means the "third bedroom" that we saw in the listing on Realtor dot com before we bought the house and that, in the usual real estate-ese, is an optimistic label at best. But I was talking about the picture. The picture sits, slightly askew, in a carved wooden bowl given to us by my wife's boss as a housewarming present. It, the bowl I mean, came with salad tongs or forks, depending on what it is that you call them, made of water buffalo horn. They sit in the bowl too and, although she'd never admit it, I know that the thought of serving salad with water buffalo horn salad forks... lets just say..... doesn't appeal to my wife. Right, the picture.... It sits in on the buffet, in the carved wooden bowl, next to another wood bowl. This one full of carved wood fruits and vegetables, which evidently, includes sugar cane. When my wife's dad moved from his house to an assisted living facility the kids, my wife, her brother and sister, took turns going down to help him move. My wife was the last and dad insisted that someone "had" to take the fruit. But, the picture.... It, and the wooden bowls full of fruit and unused salad forks, are surrounded by both faux and real glassware and placemats which all sit perched on the top of the buffet as precariously as refugees and all of their belongings on the deck and roof of an overloaded fishing boat chugging from their homeland to some place that is hopefully better. The picture... It was painted by my father-in-law and, of all the others we have in the house, is one of my favorites. It sits on the buffet, askew in the carved wooden bowl with the horn salad forks, amid polycarbonate and glass drink ware, and placemats, unframed for some reason. All of his other works came framed but this is one he did not... and did I mention that it is one of my favorites? I like his choices of frames on all of the other pictures we have, but this is just canvas, stretched over a frame, sitting in that carved African wooden bowl with those salad forks made from water buffalo horn on the buffet next to the other wood bowl full of wooden fruits and vegetables, and wooden sugar cane, in the butler's pantry.

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Jul 15, 2013

Jul 15, 2013 at 9:51 AM UTC

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The Picture

As I sit here, at the dining room table and stare over decaf coffee at the screen on my Mac my eyes are drawn, once and awhile, to the picture sitting on the buffet in the butler's pantry. Before we continue you should know that "butler's pantry" in this case means the "third bedroom" that we saw in the listing on Realtor dot com before we bought the house and that, in the usual real estate-ese, is an optimistic label at best. But I was talking about the picture. The picture sits, slightly askew, in a carved wooden bowl given to us by my wife's boss as a housewarming present. It, the bowl I mean, came with salad tongs or forks, depending on what it is that you call them, made of water buffalo horn. They sit in the bowl too and, although she'd never admit it, I know that the thought of serving salad with water buffalo horn salad forks... lets just say..... doesn't appeal to my wife. Right, the picture.... It sits in on the buffet, in the carved wooden bowl, next to another wood bowl. This one full of carved wood fruits and vegetables, which evidently, includes sugar cane. When my wife's dad moved from his house to an assisted living facility the kids, my wife, her brother and sister, took turns going down to help him move. My wife was the last and dad insisted that someone "had" to take the fruit. But, the picture.... It, and the wooden bowls full of fruit and unused salad forks, are surrounded by both faux and real glassware and placemats which all sit perched on the top of the buffet as precariously as refugees and all of their belongings on the deck and roof of an overloaded fishing boat chugging from their homeland to some place that is hopefully better. The picture... It was painted by my father-in-law and, of all the others we have in the house, is one of my favorites. It sits on the buffet, askew in the carved wooden bowl with the horn salad forks, amid polycarbonate and glass drink ware, and placemats, unframed for some reason. All of his other works came framed but this is one he did not... and did I mention that it is one of my favorites? I like his choices of frames on all of the other pictures we have, but this is just canvas, stretched over a frame, sitting in that carved African wooden bowl with those salad forks made from water buffalo horn on the buffet next to the other wood bowl full of wooden fruits and vegetables, and wooden sugar cane, in the butler's pantry.