AnElephantCant tell you how happy he is
There are days when his old grey heart just sings
The gigantic blue lobster
Is quite clearly an impostor
So he sends apologies to his dear friend MyBeautifulThings

AnElephant makes another inconsequential assault on this great weekly challenge hosted by his friend Al, who is doing great things with this site.
Please take a moment to check out this page to see some superb interpretations of the Japanese Haibun, a literary form which explores the relationship between the human experience and nature.
This week AnElephant chooses as his inspiration this superb piece of art by the lovely, and very talented, Anja.

Copyright Anja Partin

Being a Mother

I remember, just, being sixteen years old.
I was a fairly normal, if perhaps slightly wild, teenager.
I played rugby and football, did a bit of boxing, got into scraps and scrapes.
Not in any way extraordinary, just a healthy, troublesome boy.
I had and, happily, still have a brother, six years younger.
So he was still at this time just a kid.
And he had a fall, caught his face on something – a tin bucket, if memory serves – and split his nose wide open across the bridge.
Now I had already broken the odd bone, had had my head stitched up to keep my brains in, some may say with limited success, had fallen out of innumerable trees, and been hit by a lorry.
But I was helpless, and useless, when I saw his blood-splattered features.
I called for my mother, wishing that my father was home.
She was a kind, easy-going woman, for whom the description scatter-brained could have been invented.
She handled the situation with calm authority, pacifying, cleaning, organising.
What could have been a crisis was a mere hiccup.
Perhaps all the practice had been good for her.

being a mother
is understanding
the needs of a child