Flamingo (and now, with Tal's Poem)

 My friend, the poet Tal Nitzan, just published a new book. The name of the book is "Look at the Same Cloud Twice", and on it's back there is a beautiful poem about a flamingo - about the flamingo as the guardian of the Poet's solitude. Somehow, it reminded me of these images I took some time ago, although my flamingo is made of plastic and lives in the bathtub, not in a lake :).

The poem, by Tal Nitzan:

אִם

אִם תִּנָּתֵן לִי חַיַּת בְּדִידוּת

יִהְיֶה זֶה פְלָמִינְגוֹ.

כִּתְמוֹ הַוָּרֹד יֵרָאֶה לְמֵרָחוֹק,

רַגְלָיו הַמְהַסְּסוֹת-לִכְאוֹרָה

יְטוֹפְפוּ עִגּוּל סְבִיבִי

וְצַוָּארוֹ הַדַּק יִמְצָא תָּמִיד

אֶת הַמִּרְוָח הַמִּזְעָרִי

בֵּינִי לְכָל אֶחָד

וְיִכָּרֵךְ בִּמְסִירוּת עַל צַוָּארִי.

מתוך "להביט באותו ענן פעמיים" (קשב לשירה, 2012)

If

If I were given a solitude animal

it would have been a flamingo.

Its pink stain would be seen from afar,

its seemingly hesitant legs

would trace a circle around me

and its thin neck would always find

the tiny gap

between me and anyone

and loyally clench my neck.

"Look at the same cloud twice" (2012)