Navel Gazing with Pooh Bear
Posted by on December 1, 2012
A speech I came across written by a Jon Skeet and submitted as an entry for the Hooper Declamation Prize, begins:
In writing the phrase, “I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother Me,” I feel A. A. Milne summed up his whole world view as seen through the ideas of Pooh Bear. However, only in the context of the rest of his slightly paranoid but nonetheless beautiful parody of our world does it achieve its full potency.
I’m a fan of Pooh Bear and reading a comment on the now defunct My Telegraph bog site implying that a fellow contributor was ‘navel gazing’, prompted me to write the following:
Navel Gazing
Some of those who travel,
See each day their lives unravel,
Who life cannot surprise,
Dull is the mind, blind are the eyes.
Some now at journey’s end,
See life as having been a friend,
Who time, now makes able
Contemplation of their navel.
The above led me further along the road less travelled to:
More Navel Gazing
Some who choose that road less travelled,
See at each bend their plans unravelled.
So seeking succour from life’s game,
Censure all to ease their pain.
Some stride that road and at each bend,
See life embrace them as a friend,
So settle sweetly in its arms,
Cede the mind to thought that balms.
