Stream of Consciousness

      I was at an Art Museum a few days ago and examined this incense burner from ancient Islamic culture for a solid twenty minutes. I wrote down whatever came to mind, and this is what I came up with.

Incense burner.
Oh what do you represent?
With your cold eyes so hollow.
Half smiling, half screaming.

Intricate black windows allowing insight
into your slim body, reminding me that there
is nothing to see in you. At least not now.

Have you no idea that you have a tail,
curved and ready to strike?
At you? At those who you love?
Or do you know it too well to be afraid?

Are you a feline, as your face would suggest?
Or are you a creature who's identity is as
fleeting as the limbs that support you?

How mighty you must have looked,
scented embers glowing in your broad chest.
Never again, though,
will wisps of smoke and symbolism
escape through the patterns that tattoo your polished skin.

You are caged, trapped.
Damned to the narrow eyes that will never know your past triumphs.

What were your thoughts of your masters?
Who surely held you tight,
your sheer magnificence a mark of their succes.

Did you have a name?
A place? A home?
Were they truly the master of you at all?

Did the children play with you,
when your body, your soul, was not consumed with fire?
Or did they fear the face that holds such mystery to me now?

What are you thinking?
Do you know what purpose you serve?
How important, precious you once were,
though your "importance" has changed so much?

You are a memory of what once was,
what still now is for all your onlookers know.
As you sit in silence,
do you feel old?

Why were you touched at all?
Were you? Did anyone ever have a
second thought about your graceful markings as they
started the flames inside you?

Now we fear you.
We will not touch you.
And I ask you,

Do you ever feel forgotten?