December 14th

[LynnDoiron]

Awake before light-thirty
minutes past four I test
leftover red yarn
and it passes for monkey
thread yes monkey thread
for a grandson too young
to find his own hands
or care if the monkey is
brown or blue. A green
monkey with a pink thumb
would giggle him up
just as well as any else.

All the owls of my mornings
have flown heavy-bellied
and wise into a wind
that chitters the gate latch
as I single-crochet
in unbroken rounds the red
of this Christmas monkey.

All the llamas of Olinda
turn long-lashed eyes
to my ride past their pens
with queries about when

(though they mutter
they really don’t care)
the monkey will swing
through the mail
by his tail on the limbs
of letters to ones
who catch love.

Humming is here
in the room where I never hum
in the blue heart
of a red toy.

[mfwilkie]

I absolutely love the poem, chicky boom-boom, but that ending is in a class by itself.

My only thought as I read it was expecting to read 'belly' after red in this line:

'in unbroken rounds the red
of this Christmas monkey'.

Just me.

Great piece.

Mugs

[ramadevi]

What a delight!
Imaginative and witty, as usual....(what a lucky grandson)!!!

I agree with mags, the ending is delectable. HUMMMMMM
And i love the long creative sentences like all of verse two...and a combination of verses three and four.

You possess incredible talent dear Lynn!

[Vasile Baghiu]

What I like the most in this lovely poem, Lynn, is the effective contrast between the detached/neutral tone and the very human things it speaks about. Beautiful!
Vasile

[Ron Wallace (Scotshawk)]

Great bit of reading, and I kind of liked Mags' idea of "red belly". I wanted commas , of course, between "monkey thread" and "yes monkey thread", but hell, I'm always wanting commas. Loved it as a whole. Ron

[purplejacket]

I didn't get all the way thru it, so it may make sense at the end (I've had 2 glasses of wine, just so you know, which means it's my fault, not yours, that I didn't make it to the end) but the line breaks at the beginning were weird. OK. I'll give it another go.

xo

[purplejacket]

blue heart? Hmmm, I recently used the image of a heart that I called red, and a friend said something about the heart being blue because it isn't exposed to air. Well, you know, I'm a science babe, so I gave him a cardiology lesson. (Geez, my typing is crap. I think I've fixed everything, now!)

Abt the line breaks, I have what you might call a step-grandfather, and one of his catch phrases is that the current time is beer-thirty. So when I saw your first line, I thought the current time was light-thirty.

[Tina (Firefly)]

Lynnie, please know know know that I read your poems and I simply cannot cannot cannot find any nits ever ever ever. This is one of my favorites of recent months. It is SO fresh and original -- just like you. Wish you and those grandkids the happiest Christmas EVER. Love, Tina

[LynnDoiron]

thanks, all, eachh and all, for every comment. pj--i intended 'light thirty' just as you mentioned 'beer-thirty' and i left the hyphen out intentionally so that maybe the thirty would lend itself in both directions [to the light and also to the minutes] -- But, it is a little off-putting to read without, so I put the hyphen in [for the moment anyway].

and ron, there are a whole bunch of places that could use commas in this one, but to add one is to add all and i'm [so far] thinking none is better than more. so very pleased to hear about your book! and also glad you could give this one a look.

oh, and pj, [aka science girl], that blue heart is actually a blue embroidery floss heart on the chest of a red yarn monkey. [since then, i have made a lilac colored elephant, a coral chicky and a blue chicky, a striped ball bat and striped baseball, another monkey, this heartless and green with a purple face, two finger puppet dogs, an orange pig and a pink pig, a blue and green honey bee, and the list goes on . . .

Merry Days to ALL! lynn

[Jonathan Morey Weiss-Namaste47]

I feel here an increased joy in living. The "humming...where I never hum.."

A poem where real life mixes with fantasy and the animal kingdom...where one can sense the not-yet dreams of a tiny child...and the ability of a grandma to make them come true.