Dorothea Tanning - Tumblr Posts

Cultivation

by Dorothea Tanning

Cultivating people can be arduous,

With results as uncertain as weather.

Try oysters, meerkats, turnips, mice.

My mouse field was a triumph of

Cultivation—pink noses poking

Through quilts of loam, scampering

In the furrows—until the falling

Dwarves (it was that time of year)

Began landing on my field. Fear for

Its harvest had me down on hands

And knees muttering, “Not here,”

My nails clawed at tangles of fat

Dwarves crushing mouse families.

Then, unbelievably, it was over.

By morning every dwarf, maddened

By nibbling mice, had fled the field.

Now, as before, each day, dozens

Of perfect mice leave for the city.

There, they have made many friends

Among computers, and with them

Are developing skills inconceivable

To their forebears. Already, these

Cultivated mice and their computers

Penetrate guilty secrets. Soon they will

Prevail over the turmoil that defines

This darkest of ages. And they will

Find me, asleep in my cave.

Cultivation

by Dorothea Tanning

Cultivating people can be arduous,

With results as uncertain as weather.

Try oysters, meerkats, turnips, mice.

My mouse field was a triumph of

Cultivation—pink noses poking

Through quilts of loam, scampering

In the furrows—until the falling

Dwarves (it was that time of year)

Began landing on my field. Fear for

Its harvest had me down on hands

And knees muttering, “Not here,”

My nails clawed at tangles of fat

Dwarves crushing mouse families.

Then, unbelievably, it was over.

By morning every dwarf, maddened

By nibbling mice, had fled the field.

Now, as before, each day, dozens

Of perfect mice leave for the city.

There, they have made many friends

Among computers, and with them

Are developing skills inconceivable

To their forebears. Already, these

Cultivated mice and their computers

Penetrate guilty secrets. Soon they will

Prevail over the turmoil that defines

This darkest of ages. And they will

Find me, asleep in my cave.

"LA DESCENTE DANS LA RUE" DOROTHEA TANNING // 1968 [oil on canvas | 67 5⁄8 x 79 ¼"]