and Merry Christmas to my favorite emulers! i'm headed north to celebrate with my family. i wish you all the best-some of that night time cold, daytime sun and now and then, a chinook wind. there ya go.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/31/2008 03:38PM by redmitten.

Good one, Mitten, Merry Christmas to you!


Les

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/23/2008 08:03PM by les712.

I really like this, mitts. I love how the story form was used to capture the essence of so much more than what meets the eye when reading. Great job and Merry Christmas to you!

Mary

"Maybe if I had written about calla lilies
I’d understand now why nothing blooms
next to my kitchen sink."

Stick to what you know gal!

There is a dark wisdom at work here...

Good stuff as always, although the line breaks are a bit iffy in places...

Kris

The master of poetic narration/description that you are...

Merry Christmas!

Such a nice treat on Christmas Eve. You do spoil us. Merry Christmas!

Joe

P.S. I didn't know there was a north from where you live.

Damn fine.......merry hohos to you

Excellently done Mitten. A fine character/landscape study. As usual, you make your finished work look easy, but I'm sure you put a lot of care into deciding what to put in and what to leave out. That, along with the compact form, gives this piece real poetic quality, for all the somewhat loose beat of the lines and absence of word music devices.

The interest is sustained from beginning to end. Lots of details to admire. I like the irony in the contrast between the opening and the close: Floyd in a setting where 'nothing changes' advocating the benefits of variations in one's life environment.

Best wishes to you for a happy, hyperborean Christmas.

Ian

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/25/2008 06:57AM by IanAKB.

Mitts,
When I read the "back of the Big R" I of course thunk upon the conversation we had in that exact place. You did not introduce me to Floyd.

I read this with relish,, (leave it alone Johnny, it's too easy for you) I absolutely HATE winter in the north half of the country. But, having said that, I miss it. The closest thing we have to a Big R, or Missoula's Axman, or for that matter a Corral West, is Johnny's Feed Store.

By nature, I will disagree with Kris. We should never stick to what we know. Only by leaving what we know on the kitchen sink and exploring the house, block, city, state, country, world, solar system, universe, do we learn other things to know. In love we learn the reason for life. In war we learn that it is precious, and fragile. In flight we learn that there is a God, on the freeway, we learn that we are not so sure.

Very nicely done, ma dear.
Next time I'm in town, we are doing dinner at that place across the street from the Grand Plaza again.
Luv ya

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/26/2008 10:54AM by Merc.

thanks les, i posted this poem and then headed north before i could respond.

merry mary, i'm glad you enjoyed the experience with me in the back of the big r. you've a poet's heart i can tell.


hey camus, i wrote the poem last spring, wasn't sure if that dark wisdom was coming out in the poem. good to hear you see it in there. and linebreaks? yeah there were a few i wanted to make the way they are-which then messed up the others.


mrfear, good to see you in here. hope the holidays treated you well.


joe, your flattery! thank you. ! i grew up more north of here, and then north of there is canada. the roads coming back were posted left and right with hazardous warnings. (argh) but we convoyed back with my ex- all in all a trip that should show up in some future poem.

mr sans, double thanks and hos to you as well!


ian, i wondered if that contrast between nothing changes and floy(d) telling me that we all need contrast would work. makes a person wonder about floyd-my heart goes out to him. in a room filled with 111111 things, which do we pick out to tell a story? we'd each tell it differently. i enjoy that. thanks for your kind words!

and now my dear merc,

your post is poetry all the way through. i'll save it. know that you showed me the universe and the way to embrace it no matter what. the longer we live the braver we must be. absolutely to that next meal. someday i'll show you the poem that came from that meal.


thanks to all you guys (montana talk for people i care about). now, my son and i are headed out the door to shovel snow so we can get vehicles out of the driveway. and then go find my daughter's pickup and dig it out.

Thanks mitten. Your talent shines again. I always relish your observations of the world. I can offer no critique because I am just in awe of the natural style.

I never know when one of your gems is going to come along, so I have learned to copy them quick before you tear them out of here and publish them.

I know what you mean about the snow. Strange winter. We got about 40 inches so far and over 30 of it melted. Next week we get to shovel some again and again and again.

Steve

my, I miss shoveling snow. Sorry I missed this earlier. good look into people, hence, good work, red.

Peter

hey steevo,

why thank you for such kind words.

this winter, i am getting a taste for the weather you get every year. we are not accustomed to snow sticking around for longer than a week. one of these days the snow needs to melt so i can get my car out of the frozen drift it is in.


peter,

thanks! i enjoy observing and seeing what i might be able to figure out. i know what you mean about shovelling snow. when i was with my parents over xmas, my mom scolded my dad for shovelling snow without her. we all enjoy it- up to a certain limit.

Enjoy!

K.Q.