The Gift: Can You Compare?

Who is worth more? Her or me? You or him?

These kinds of questions are extremely stressful to consider and virtually impossible to answer says Lewis Hyde in The Gift, because "we tend not to assign comparative values to those things to which we are emotionally connected." It is why things with market value must be "detachable or alienable" so they "can be put on the scale and compared."

This reminds me of a poem I once read, from a mother's point of view, in famine time. She's trying to decide which child to give food to. Should it be Sonya who is weak and small, or the eldest boy who has a fighting chance, and so on. Reading that poem was a pivotal experience for me, causing me to make some permanent alterations in my lifestyle, as I considered the role of global forces in the lives of mothers and fathers around the world.

If a gift economy is what enables us to feel deeply connected to others, so that we find it more difficult to assign greater or lesser value to certain people, what does this mean in a world that increasingly functions at the level of "market exchange" rather than "gift exchange"?

I don't have any great answers to that question. But I do have a giving-poem. And it seems I'm still stuck in the kitchen. Which gives me an idea for our next prompt, or series of prompts: let's begin in the kitchen (since that's where I am) and trace our homes in poetry; next week we can choose a different room.

Simply describe the kitchen, or choose a particular item, the way I chose a broom last week and a cup this week. Post your poem by Thursday July 30, for possible feature and definite links at High Calling Blogs. Leave your link here in my comment box.


"Offering"

I am just
a simple cup
on counter
bare scrubbed
scoured of day’s
too sour lemonade,
catsup fingerprints
hints of cream
loss of dreams
in coffee sipped,
dripped past
crumbs ‘til day
is numb with
stars. Pick me
up, sweep into
me the dregs
of play. That’s
what I’m for
when empty
anyway.


Doll Photo by Sara B. Used with permission.

POETRY FRIDAY:
High Calling Blogs RAP: Emotion's in the Details
LL’s Longing
Sara’s Universe
Jennifer’s Thin Place
Claire’s Boxed Being
Cindy’s In Our Mind’s Eye
Jim’s Hot Summer Night
Milton’s It’s Just the Way My Mind Works
Dave’s The Cold Season
Monica's Leather Bible Cover
Deb's Orange Glow
Lance's Equation