Happy Poetry Friday!
Thank you to Karen Edmisten* for hosting this week’s round up. Visit her blog for a poem by Wendell Berry that contains the line: I greet you at the beginning, for we are either beginning or we are dead. Wowza!
I have so missed everyone! I can’t wait to read about your most recent beginnings. Today, I just have a silly story.
We are wrapping up a kitchen remodel that has left me feeling discombobulated for the last several months. I failed to realize that the kitchen is the center of life in our house and how difficult it would be without it.
Several weeks back, we decided to move our old fridge out by ourselves. My husband, my son, and I thought this would be a piece of icebox cake! We backed the pickup truck to the front door, lined up boards and dollies, removed the refrigerator doors so that it would fit through our skinny doorframes, and pushed. This strategy worked surprisingly well. We made it out of the kitchen, through the dining room, through the living room, and out onto the front porch without incident.
As we inched the refrigerator up the planks into the back of the truck, it tipped barely a fraction of an inch. Suddenly, everything was off kilter and the refrigerator plummeted into the rhododendron. The three of us stared in disbelief. This debacle inspired this sketch and poem:
Steady Eddie, Refrigerator
Steady Eddie, let her ride –
sailing on her dolly-boat.
Swishing over carpet oceans,
luckily, she stays afloat.
Over thresholds, under doorways,
squeezing down the skinny hall,
navigating architecture –
unafraid of any squall.
The journey’s final leg arrives.
Up the ramp, we make an end-run.
Then a breeze sends us adrift –
we capsize in the rhododendron!
Admittedly, a few issues with that poem, but I had fun writing it, spur of the moment.
Here's a photo of the incident:
When all hope seemed lost, a jeep pulled up - as if it were already on its way to our house. A mother-son duo hopped out and took charge of this dire situation. A quick push-pull-lift and that fridge was loaded neatly into the back of the truck.
As quickly as they arrived, this dynamic duo leapt back into their jeep and drove off. I ran after them with fresh-baked focaccia, which they graciously accepted, then disappeared into the sunset.
In a world filled with chaos, this mother-son pair arrived, no-questions-asked, and saved the day. How can I not have a little faith in humanity after that?
Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend!