{"id":2225,"date":"2009-10-12T11:32:21","date_gmt":"2009-10-12T15:32:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/?p=2225"},"modified":"2009-10-13T00:01:52","modified_gmt":"2009-10-13T04:01:52","slug":"guest-poem-by-katie-baker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2009\/10\/12\/guest-poem-by-katie-baker\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest poem by Katie Baker"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong> Ode to the old cottage kitchen&#8230;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We dined like peasants, we dined liked kings, we dined like wet children home from the beach with blue lips quivering<br \/>\nwet bums in wet bathing suits, leaving wet marks on the chairs<br \/>\nWe lit candles, we spilled wine on your crooked table,<br \/>\nour young one&#8217;s feet stumbled over your joyously crooked floors<br \/>\nthose floors! Those magnificent floors~ &#8220;I haven&#8217;t had THAT much to drink have I&#8221;?<br \/>\nthe mice nibbled crackers in your crooked metal cabinet beside the crooked fridge that didnt quite keep ice cream cold enough<br \/>\nwe mixed exotic cocktails; gin and tonics, scotch and sodas, rye and cokes&#8230;the list goes on my friends<br \/>\nenough cold beer to fill<!--more--> a stadium pulled from the ancient &#8220;icah-box&#8221; over the decades<br \/>\nwe stumbled in from warm fires by the river, in search of your leftovers,<br \/>\nwe piled your table high with endless bags of supplies hauled from &#8220;uptown&#8221;<br \/>\nrainy afternoon games of yahtzee, cribbage and euchre&#8230;. ah euchre!<br \/>\n&#8230;late night games of euchre, monopoly, poker and trivial pursuit<br \/>\nyour pull down overhead light rained shadflies, mosquitoes and no-see-ums on our heads<br \/>\nand the spiders&#8230;.ah the spiders! they were icing on your cake of greatness.<br \/>\nspiders&#8230;everywhere&#8230;spider shit&#8230;everywhere. webs spun at night. glistening across your windows<br \/>\nin the early morning sunlight<br \/>\nthe beloved back door view&#8230;a mother watching her children run home over the hill<br \/>\nbird&#8217;s eye views of shuffleboard matches, the clanging of a horeshoe sailing in for a ringer<br \/>\na virtual highway of islanders on after-dinner strolls to the point for a swim in the fading summer twilight.<\/p>\n<p>diapers changed on the table, counters.<br \/>\nbottles of milk made warm for fussy babies<br \/>\nvases of wild island flowers, plucked with grubby hands from the valley to make a mother smiile<br \/>\nbrown-eyed Susan&#8217;s, morning glories, daisies, Queen Anne&#8217;s lace<br \/>\n&#8220;good mornings&#8221; called gingerly through the window to the adjoining bedroom<br \/>\nsmell of bacon frying on Sunday morning<br \/>\nfather searching endlessly in the junk drawer&#8230;&#8221;FRAN? Where have you put the hammer&#8221;?!?<\/p>\n<p>boards, paint, nails, shingles, glass, fixtures, old metal sink, a stove with one working ring, a red door&#8230;<br \/>\nmaterials. things. love. memories. tears. laughter.<br \/>\nyour four walls held us all&#8230; every one. and so many more.<br \/>\nthank you.<br \/>\ngoodbye.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This poem was submitted by family friend Katie Baker, whose cottage, near ours, is undergoing substantial renovations. <a href=\"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2009\/10\/12\/guest-poem-by-katie-baker\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[721],"tags":[288,1002,665],"class_list":["post-2225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-poems","tag-cottage","tag-family","tag-stanley-island"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}