The Elephant in the room

[chloe40]

There’s an elephant in the room.

It is large and squatting,

so it is hard to get around it.

Yet we squeeze by with,

“How are you?” and, “I’m fine,”

and a thousand other forms of trivial chatter.

We talk about the weather;

we talk about work;

we talk about everything else—

except the elephant in the room.

There’s an elephant in the room.

We all know it is there.

We are thinking about the elephant

as we talk together.

It is constantly on our minds.

For, you see, it is a very big elephant.

It has hurt us all, but we do not talk about

the elephant in the room.

Oh, please, say her name.

Oh, please, say “Barbara” again.

Oh, please, let’s talk about

the elephant in the room.

For if we talk about her death,

perhaps we can talk about her life.

Can I say, “Barbara” to you

and not have you look away?

For if I cannot,

then you are leaving me alone

in a room—with an elephant.

~ Terry Kettering

[Greyone]

How about "The Emperor's New Clothes" for an encore. You're reminding me of that nice lady Felicity Kendle you know. Wasn't she very good with that chap with the odd hair cut ?

Reminds me of the time we were studying Of Mice And Men in English and the teacher asked us for comments on a section of text about Crooks. After about ten minutes, the teacher said "Has any one noticed he's black?"