Nubian ---

First of all, welcome back, we've missed you!

Secondly, that poem really strikes a chord in me. I live next door to a nursing home and have been a pet therapy volunteer in the Alzheimers' wing for many years, and the geri (geriatric) chairs there have always bothered me enormously. I began to hate them even more when my friend, who had Huntington's Disease, had to be confined to one... Mercifully she no longer has to deal with that or any of the other cruel restraints, as she passed away almost a year ago.

I suppose I should explain a little here, folks will be wondering why that poem was (so generously) dedicated to me... I challenged Nubian to try a poetry exercise that a poet friend of mine and I created. My friend had written a number of poems using chair imagery over a period of several years, and as I dug through them I began to see subtle changes in how he used the image and recognized that they revealed a great deal about his mindset at each point. We decided to challenge the students in his class (he's an English teacher) to write their own chair poems, and were stunned by the variety in the responses. I don't know what it is about the particular image, except that it's something everyone can relate to. Anyway, I challenged Nubian to write a chair poem as well, and now I'll share mine as well in return......... I'd love to see what the other Pixies' poets would come up with based on this little exercise --- if anyone wants to try I'll happily send the instructions...

the chair poem

velvet
enfolds
her

wraps her in
c i n n a m o n
softness
creamy
quiet
comfort

she
f l o a t s
in its
embrace

a fetal
curl
in
heirloom
tradition

family

compassionate

g r a c e

__________________
"You can't test courage cautiously." --- Annie Dillard