Monday July 13th, 2009

The exercise:

400 seems like an awful lot of days in a row to write, doesn't it? I'm not sure how I've managed to get here already, to be honest. Doesn't seem nearly that long.

But it is what it is and I am what I am and who knows what the hell I'm going on about anyway?

I think I should get to the starter before too much of my insanity shows. So here it is: Eskimos and rainbows.

Hmm. It appears to be too late. I must be really tired or something.

Mine:

Joe
The Eskimo
After too long in the snow
Decided one day, don't you know,
To paint his little igloo like a rainbow.

So
His Aunt Flo
Decided to sew
(Rather than start a row)
A nice big psychedelic polar bear throw.

Oh
Joe's home did glow
As seen from the furthest plateau
And it still shines today, even though
The last coat of paint was many years ago.

3 comments:

Greg said...

Woohoo! 400 days is pretty good going :) Congratulations!

I like today's poem, the structure works really well with the rhythym to draw you in and along with it. And I kind of like the idea of a rainbow igloo, it makes me smile when no-one's watching.

Eskimos and rainbows

I was so surprised the other day,
When chasing down a rainbow,
For at the end there was no gold,
Just an eskimo.

So where's the leprechaun? I said,
I've only come here for the money!
This is all the gold I've got he said,
-- It was a pot of honey.

Salynne Wilde said...

Congratulations on 400 days! You're an inspiration to those of us who hope to get there ourselves.

Your prompt totally inspired me the moment I read it and I knew instantly that I had to write down a story based about something that happened in my childhood. Funny though how your poem is not far off from my experience and perhaps its a coincidence but today I'm supposed to painting my bathroom instead of writing.....Hope you enjoy...

Emily was four and a half years old. Clad in her puffy little snowsuit and sparkly fuchsia skidoo boots she looked like a miniature pink version of the Michelin man. Her pink scarf wrapped around her head so that only her eyes showed and she toddled rather walked from the front door of her home towards the snow fort she and her older brother had built the day before.

In Emily’s mind she was not Emily, the little girl who lived at 242 Gladmoren Park in Regina, Saskatchewan. She knew where she lived that was for sure. Her mommy and daddy were so happy and proud that she could recite her address and on normal, everyday days, she was Emily who lived at 242 Gladmoren Park in Regina, Saskatchewan. Today though was a special day and she wasn’t Emily at all; she was Anuk the Eskimo living at the North Pole.

She bent down and crawled through the entrance of her frosty little home. The room was not large but big enough to fit her and her ten year old brother, John. They had spent almost the entire day yesterday burrowing into one of the large snow banks at the edge of the yard. John had smoothed the inside of the igloo fort, created a couple of stools for sitting on and had even poked a stick through the wall to create a small window. Today John was at school which made Emily sad because she wasn’t old enough to go there yet. “Next year”, mommy said. “You’ll go to school when it is fall time and the leaves turn orange and red.” It wasn’t fall time today, Emily thought. This was winter because there was lots of bright, white snow and there were no leaves on the trees and that meant that John was at school and she had to play by herself today.

The sun shone boldly through the little opening and illuminated the all white décor of her North Pole home. Emily perched herself on one of the stools and then with her mitten clad hand reached into her pocket, clasped the hard irregularly shaped object within and slowly drew it out. Her grandma’s rhinestone brooch lay in her palm. Grandma had given it to her for her dress up box and she had told Emily it had magical powers. Slowly and very carefully so as not to drop her precious cargo she moved her hand into the beam of light.

Sparkling jewelled colors burst around the room; rainbows of blue, green, red and purple splashed everywhere across the walls, the floor, across Emily herself. The colours danced and moved magically covering every surface. Anuk the Eskimo’s eyes sparkled as brightly at the colours surrounding her, her lips parted in a smile and her head titled back as she laughed in delight at what a clever little girl she was to paint her igloo in magic rainbows.

Salynne ©2009
http://wildetide.blogspot.com/

Marc said...

Greg - thanks very much :)

Sounds like you found a Winnie the Pooh bear Eskimo in your poem :)

Salynne - wow, that's a lovely story! So well told, too. I found myself worried that something bad would happen, with her alone in the igloo, and that made the ending even more beautiful.

Oh, and thanks very much for the congrats. But seeing a response like that to some silly, half-assed prompt I came up with is all the inspiration I need to keep going :)