Poetic License in a Temperate Climate
December’s moved south of the border where it isn’t so icy and cold,
but still of all of the months of the year, it’s the one where the weather’s most bold.
It’s that time of the year where I profit from staying in bed until nine,
my bed being where I feel warmest—snuggled in blankets, supine.
At seven and eight it is silent, each dog still curled in his bed,
as I burrow into my poem of the day, rousting it out of my head.
It finds a new home on my hard drive, thus quelling my need to relate
as all of my creative juices suddenly seem to abate.
As my poetry swells to fruition, I finally stir from my nest
to dress in my toe socks and leggings, my sweater and wooly warm vest.
A poem survives any weather, surrounded by peers on the screen,
but even in temperate countries, December remains the most mean.
By April, I’ll feel warm and toasty and I’ll need a different reason
for staying in bed until nine when it is such a perfectly temperate season.
Yes, it’s true. I even wear them in bed! Prompt words today are December, profit, silent,
quell and home.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 
Great one, thanks, and I need some socks like that~ my toes are always the coldest part of my body, maybe just too far from my brain, which is trying to remember those half-asleep thoughts of a great poem I had at about 3 o’clock in the morning…
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Surprising what a difference it makes to have each toe separately swathed. If I thought we wore the same size, I’d send you a pair. I have 5 or 6 different colors and patterns. Don’t know why.
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Actually that reply was partly “tongue in cheek”, or would that be toe in sock.. I will look into Amazon, my favorite shopping place, to find a pair cheaper than you can send them.. But here is why I thought they would be a good idea~! ..
Several months back my pinky started having severe pain in it, especially at night, like someone was driving a nail into it~!.. I blamed it on that coffee table, which sometimes attacks me if I try to walk near it in the dark, and possibly breaking it.
I soon found that a band-aid wrapped between those two toes helped the pain enough for me to get some sleep.. But finally, after thinking that I may have a broken pinky, I went to a Podiatrists last week..
They x-rayed it and he looked at the film saying everything was perfect, then he looked the spot where it seemed I was being stabbed in the side between my “little” toe and segundo cerdito~! There, he said, I see your problem, he got out a scalpel and started whittling on the area between those toes~! he said “you have a corn”.
I was thinking “only ‘old women’ get “corns” from wearing the wrong tight shoes, I would never have one~!”, but anyway the more he whittled they less pain I had… HE FIXED MY PROBLEM~! and said: “if (when) it comes back we can fix it again”.. But in the meantime those socks would be easier than trying to put a band-aid between my toes, which I do have a problem reaching anyway~!…
Long story, but I do not have a goiter or any other terrible maladies to talk about~!!!
Your socks also brought back other old memories, which you may be too young to know about. In school, a lot of the girls knitted argyle socks for their favorite boy friend…You would see girls all over the campus with those special knitting needles knitting away~! In about two years mine never got finished and I only got one and one half socks~!
Sorry, slow Friday but I do have more important things to do~!
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Oh man. I left home at 10 this morning and just got home at 7:30 at night. I read at the local reading series this morning, then lunch, then a reception and visit to a gallery with a friend. Home just in time to heat up the beans I made for a potluck and then to the potluck. That’s too much activity for this stage of life. I think my pool is full after a week with no water, so I may go take a dip. Ahhhhh. Get the toe sox. I have problems with both of my little toes and they love being isolated. My main reason is because I’m always cold, though, and they are warmer than regular socks plus don’t tug at the end of your toes like normal sox do. I should be a toe sock influencer!!!
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Oh Judy slow down~!~! (Look who is giving advice) But when I finally started cutting back, I then saw that I had missed a lot right here at home~! It seemed that every time someone asked for a volunteer my hand popped up~! And I do a lot of history research which also takes up a lot of my time at the research library of UT.
But this is not the first time I said this to you, and even wrote a poem to you about it…
I did order some “toe socks to sleep in”, though they call them running socks. My feet do get cold while the rest of me is a furnace. So I sleep with light covering, with a throw blanket and two cats to keep my feet warm, with a Tami to keep them in their place.
I had a busy day too, and will also be helping my son all weekend on a building project.
The guest I invited to stay in “The Barn” have added a lot to my work load, first the heat pump went out the first day they were here, and that cost me over $1-K now tonight they called to say that the sewage had backed up…, So tomorrow the septic tank (sucker) people will be here~! None of these things ever happen to me alone, and not the type of problem I really wanted or need~!…. All due to my being Mr. nice Guy~! Did you ever have a guest that no matter how nice they were, eventually you wished they would just leave~? Having friends around are nice but often the solitude is even nicer and becomes welcome~!
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Yes, I definitely did. It was the guest who left her dog when she left!!! Glad I have him now but she had some nerve to just take off without him! Then a few years later she showed up with another dog and wondered if I’d take him. Sloooooow burn.
Did you get wild toe socks? I hope so. They keep your feet warmer.
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Supposed to get my new socks tomorrow~! Judy I will try to send you a more personal email note about my possibly leaving WordPerfect at the end of this month~! Right now I have a friend looking into building another way to do my online posting.. As you already know my efforts were and are of a different nature than yours and many others online. I love and enjoy the small group that i like to keep up with so this would be a sad change for me. But they did something that left me less than happy with them and it seems that when you try to communicate your problem, you end up with a computer generated reply. Maybe they just got too big to care about the people they serve.
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December should be flattered at such and ode written in its honor
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Ah, thanks, Sadje. Probably not a usual topic for a December poem!
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You’re welcome!
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Changing the reason with the changing of the season sounds like a good exercise. As long as one stays in bed until 9.
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Ha.
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A perfect nod to December and the desire to spend it in bed! Well done.
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It has been so cold and of course people here don’t have heating or airconditioning.. I occasionally use a tiny space heater, but there is only one power plate in my living room where I can plug it in without turning off all the rest of the electrical appliances, i.e. computers, printers and routers, and that electrical plug is about 20 feet away from my desk on the opposite wall which means a loooong extension cord and the chance of tripping over it.
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That sounds miserable, Judy. You don’t have any central heating radiators then? I’d move something to have that heater nearer if I were you.
Maybe get a wireless printer so that can go elsewhere and then heater goes in printers socket.
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It doesn’t last long and isn’t subzero temps..
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Thats good, you stay warm until the better temperatures arrive.
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Those are some wild and crazy socks, lady!
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Jealous? I have wilder ones than this. I should do a fashion show.
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Wow, lots of great comments on this poem! I had several chuckles and remember wearing my own toe socks…several decades ago! Nice memories. 🙂
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An excellent rhyming poetic take on December — bravo
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Thanks, Ron.
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Nine o’clock is great here, too. We are moving into our frosty season, although not there yet. Daytime temps still in the mid 60’s, and low 50’s at night. I love the toe socks — so colorful, and I’ll be they’re warm, too. I’m actually looking for a 3rd blanket these days! Happy December!
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I remember how cold it could get in Huntington Beach as well.
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When I lived in Hawaii, I considered anything less than 70 degrees to be very cold. If people wrote to us and said it was cold, we’d respond that it was cold in HI too — below 70!
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I don’t know why this post is just now coming back to me… In the meantime, I got two of those toe socks and liked the so much that I ordered several for members of my female family friends. They keep “this little piggy from crying “wee wee wee” all the way home. I am slowly getting back to posting after being very upset with WordPress, which I still do not have straightened out.
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