{"id":40,"date":"2006-02-19T23:35:38","date_gmt":"2006-02-20T04:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/?p=40"},"modified":"2009-02-16T22:44:41","modified_gmt":"2009-02-17T02:44:41","slug":"the-allegory-of-the-photographs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2006\/02\/19\/the-allegory-of-the-photographs\/","title":{"rendered":"The Allegory of the Photographs"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><em>They are born in a cave where they are chained so they can see only shadows of objects on the walls of the cave before them. One of them escapes to the wonders outside, but when he returns they do not believe him . . . .<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 synopsis of &#8220;The Allegory of the Cave&#8221; by Plato from <em>The Republic<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In some, she smiles impishly;<br \/>\nIn others, vacant dementia . . .<\/p>\n<p>Youngest sister<br \/>\nYou have gone on<br \/>\nBefore us<br \/>\nHave left the cave<br \/>\nLeft us chained<br \/>\nFixated on images, skewered by them like collected moths.<br \/>\nYou smile at us now<br \/>\nLined up with us then<br \/>\nOn the row of lawn chairs<br \/>\nIn front of the cottage<br \/>\nOn that sunny, funny day.<\/p>\n<p>All sunny days<br \/>\nSo yellow-green seen in this<br \/>\nCold grey February dusk<br \/>\nOn the dining-room table<br \/>\nCats prowl curiously<br \/>\nLounging on the coloured<br \/>\nRectangles that wait for<br \/>\nTheir resting place in the album.<\/p>\n<p>Those summers so green, so blue, so ochre, so soft<br \/>\nSo soft, so sweet, so warm river flowing \u2019round the curved canoe hull<br \/>\nGliding casting its shadow through the green waving weeds<br \/>\nOn the soft river bottom.<br \/>\nPerch glimmer horizontal green striped and orange silver flashes<br \/>\nStraight to the frying pan! Children laugh out of control, out of touch,<br \/>\nOut of mind, out of<br \/>\nCool chocolaty woods that hide, nurture, bathe youth in sweetness.<\/p>\n<p>Can you make me a copy of that one we all beg.<\/p>\n<p>Are you waiting in those pages for us<br \/>\nTo rejoice in that joke on the tip of your tongue?<br \/>\nWho else will with such innocent stealth<br \/>\nCraft such a raunchy punch line?<\/p>\n<p>The rest of us are here, standing<br \/>\nLounging around the table<br \/>\nLooking at pictures<br \/>\nWhile your daughter<br \/>\nGlances furtively out of the cave for you.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\"><strong>The poem<\/strong><\/span> (2:10)[podcast]http:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/podcast\/Allegory-1.mp3[\/podcast]<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\"><strong>The commentary<\/strong><\/span> (0:57)[podcast]http:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/podcast\/Allegory-2.mp3[\/podcast]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They are born in a cave where they are chained so they can see only shadows of objects on the walls of the cave before them. One of them escapes to the wonders outside, but when he returns they do &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2006\/02\/19\/the-allegory-of-the-photographs\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[451,452,87,1002,315,193],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-audio","tag-chris","tag-death","tag-family","tag-loss","tag-voice-recording"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}