"I as secret as yon buried spring plod dumbly on and dream"

I felt tired and melacholy all day, but the upside is there was no space for anxiety. I'll take melancholy over anxiety any day, really. I'm reminded of 2 things today...I'm PMSing and I hardly ever see the sun these days. I do have issues with Seasonal Affective Disorder, so it's time for me to get some walks during the day again (which would help the anxiety, too).

Anyway, enough of the minutiae of my emotional states. I know you all don't care, but it gets old on my side of things. I want something different. But, of course, I had a hard time thinking of a topic and I didn't have any pretty pictures to share.

So you all know I love poetry...I thought I'd share 2 with you, then set us all to a poetic task.

1. Woman's Touch, by Kate Braid

Lunchtime, sitting on a lumber pile
in the middle of the construction site,
my eye fell
on Sam's 32 ouce hammer
with the 24 inch handle.

How come all our tools
are longer than they are wide?
I asked.

Silence.

Feeling reckless
with confidence because
that morning I'd cut
my first set of stairs
at a perfect fit, I pushed on.

How come the hammer,
the saw, everything
except the tool belt looks like
you know what?

Don't be so sensitive, Sam said.
How else could they be?
There was a chorus of grunts
in the bass mode.
Besides,
Sam was on firm ground now,
the circular saw is round.

Ed raised his head slowly,
The circular saw was invented by a woman,
he said, and took a bite of salami.
He finished the meat then sat
quite still, contemplating his Oreo.
In 1810 in New England, he continued,
Sarah Babbitt's husband had a sawmill
where they cut the logs over a pit
with a man at each end of a huge hand saw.
She noticed they wasted half
their energy, for hand saws only cut
on the push. She had an idea.

Ed took a chocolate bite and chewed.
Even Sam was quiet.
She went into her kitchen
fetched a tin dish and cut
teeth in it. Then she slipped it
onto the spindle of her spinning wheel,
fed a cedar shake into it
and the circular saw was born.

Ed folded his brown paper bag.
After a certain silence
Sam spat.
I knew there was something funny
about that saw, he said
and sulked off stomping sawdust.


2. This is a collaborative poem...written with one person writing the first line then the next line by the next. Once there are two lines, the first is folded down so that only the second line is visible and the next person writes their line seeing only the line before it, until every one has a turn. It's a great party game...this is the only poem that came out well, from a weekend party I went to....

When fireflies rise and God is in the trees
I feel your breath enter me
filling me like a balloon
growing with time, enlarging within me.
It moves. I sweat - surge on toward infinity!
In the salty end, two rest content,
their bodies intertwined, they fall asleep
munching chocolate chip cookies.
Ice cream cats never tasted so good.
I want to lick my fingers.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

So I propose we write a poem together. I'll write one line, then the first to comment gets the next line, etc. There might be some confusion if there is simultaneous comments, but that's okay.

So, even if you aren't a poet, indulge me on this (you don't have to rhyme or be terribly eloquent) - or I'll have to get melacholy on your ass again.

Here goes:

It's cold tonight, and the wind is rattling the windows.