not a problem to be solved
12 Oct
Sometimes yeti clans appear
in the yellow-white spheres
of my headlights when I pull
into the driveway,
faces dilated, they are paralyzed
in the halogen glow, the bulk
of their hirsute bodies creased
forward, poised to jump.
I leave the engine idling,
wait to see what they’ll do
if I hold them frozen in my beams,
plastic bags, clenched in their fists,
full of discarded pizza slices
and apple cores picked
from the garbage can on the side
of the house. One might reach
a hand into the bag, sneak a bite
of food to her mouth, chomp
down on cold, tough pizza
with a faraway look in her eyes.
Then they sashay in pairs
toward the shadows, a nonchalant
do-se-do to places I’ve never visited,
to the caves and hollows where yetis
dwell when no one is looking.
8
8
8
The prompt from last week at read write poem is about dinosaurs and monsters.
*Yeti, 1937, from the Tibetan; a small humanoid creature said to live somewhere in the Himalayas.
One of my favorite Backyardigans (your kids are probably too old for this show) episodes is about looking for the yetis! We call out to the yetis when we go on hikes. So, I immediately was drawn in to this poem. I love the image of them in your headlights. This is great magial realism! It leaves a vivid picture in my mind that I will revisit the next time I pull in my driveway.
Hello. Love this place…….it is very you. Wonderful name, great design. Where’s the coffee and cake?
Happy New Website to you!
This is a great piece: disorienting and familiar, weird and wonderful. Provoking a flutter of interpretation and puzzle-solving–are the yeti raccoons, neighborhood kids, actual yeti?–and I love that uncertainty, the mystery and intrigue here. I particularly love that the yeti you lock eyes with, eating old pizza with a faraway look in her eyes, is female, which provokes another flurry of possible interpretations–are the yeti our shadow selves, the lives we could have led? Is this yeti another you? Really, really nice. The title is excellent, too–my favorite sort of title, that adds another dimension to the piece, and does a lot of the work of the poem.
I love your new site.
And I love that you took yetis and brought them “home”. Intriguing. Great scene and concept. And words. “faces dilated” is my favorite in a whole string.
Ha, there’s no flies on me. You’re already in my googleyreader and I’ve changed my links over at florescence. I’ll go do our ouroboros blog too (hey, how cool, I never noticed before it starts with the word our, how appropriate *grin*).
I love new place. That header is fantastic. This poem has a great title and I love the pay you manipulate sound in lines like “sashay in pairs toward the shadows.”
great new place and a great poem to kick off the whole celebration!!!
Hey! I didn’t know you were doing this! I like it here. And ouroboros is up and running? I’ll go look for it. I’ve been moving too fast for months. (too busy, too scattered.)
Wow, so many visits from friends already! Thanks everyone.
Rick, this is a new, somewhat spur of the moment idea. Ouroboros is still under construction. The link you see is only to the blog.
Nice new digs!
Very nice, Christine. To both the new site and the poem.
cool new digs, christine! very nice!
the yeti in the headlights caught my attention right away!fun concept–and i like how you realized it!