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Commentary
TERRARIUMS*
When I was a boy, I wanted a terrarium. There, within the glass walls of that miniature world, little plants would thrive in healthy contentment.
In my adult years, I created terrariums** of various sorts, and I continue creating them. Some lasted a season. Some lasted decades. But all the terrariums eventually failed. Something always got out of balance. Too much of this, too little of that.
There’s something about knowing evil in a larger world that leaves me unsatisfied by terrariums. It’s not because terrariums fail. It’s because whatever success they have doesn’t fool me. Beyond the glass walls of every terrarium–be it literal or metaphorical–is a world dying in unhealthy discontent.
I don’t want another terrarium. I want a new world.
___________
*How dare ya
Insist on “terraria”?
**I wondered if people would read the reference to terrariums literally. I haven’t ever had an ACTUAL terrarium, although I DID wish for a literal terrarium when I was young. Now, a very intelligent reader has let me know that s/he read all the references to terrariums as literal.
I thought “terrariums” was a powerful metaphor for projects that try to satisfy one’s deep-down desire for beauty and control in the midst of ugliness and chaos (likely even more than that).
So, the question is, how could I have retained the power of metaphor while tipping off the reader that I wasn’t being literal? Readers EXPECT metaphor in poetry, but are thrown by extended metaphor in prose. IDEAS??
One idea is a tiny addition to the penultimate sentence: “Beyond the glass walls of every terrarium [–be it literal or metaphorical–] is a world dying in unhealthy discontent.” I’m going to insert that now.