The Pain of Proverbs 31

said no honest man, ever.
Just kidding!
When all's said and done,
the best men are
looking for much more
than beauty...but they
still like it. Let's be
clear about that. The
problem with Prov. 31
is that Lemuel's mother
listed all the things SHE
wanted to see in a
daughter-in-law. She
didn't consider what
her son wanted, sounds like,
anyway. I want my son
to marry a woman who
makes him laugh and
loves him completely
and makes his head spin
but it's not up to me.
Wasn't up to Lemmy's
mom either! Women
of the world: be free
of this impossible
standard of wife-ness!

"A good wife, who can find?" In my mind,
I always hear the question posed in Proverbs
with a Yiddish lilt, instilling words with air
that's almost comical, the mom's unspoken
answer there implied: "No one can! There's
no girl good enough for my son." But if
there were...and then she lists requirements
of a woman who not only has the attributes
to do it all, she finds the time to cook and
sew and buy a field, sell things she's made
and help the poor and see that hubby has
it all as well. Her household operates with
clock-like regularity, apparently her husband's
bowels, too. (No good thing is he without,
and that would be included.) Superwoman,
goddess, love slave, beauty, grace, she laughs
while she is spinning cloth to drape across
the bed. Women have enough to deal with,
juxtaposed against the ads with women half
our ages and our sizes, without also getting
guilt-tripped by acrostic poem penned by
Lemmy's mother many hundred years ago.
My question's this, just where is
detailed check list for the husbands of
these perfect wives so they can also
measure manliness against someone who
frankly, does not, never will, exist?


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

Running-Out-Of-Time-Rhyme

A poem a day?
There's just no way
to keep up this commitment.
What was I thinking?
Was I drinking?
But deadlines are insistent,
even this one.
If I missed one,
could I hold my head up high?
Would you notice
if my poet's
plan failed here to satisfy?
If my grand intention
met with intervention
so blog's call proved insufficient
to lure from other, so persistent,
task, I ask:
would those reading
email, pleading,
for return to my computer?
I don't think so-
could be wrong, though-
we may find out in the future.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

May 29, 1953

Hillary & Norgay
on the way back down
from the summit.

Upon this day
Mr. Norgay
and Mr. Hillary,
back in '53,
climbed so high
under Asian sky
they passed the test
of Mount Everest.
They made their way
up the HimaLAY-as
and didn't fall
off the mighty HiMAL'ya,
two pitiful rhymes
as I'm out of time.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

The iPoint Evolution Problem (which sounds worse than it is)

Some guy has thirteen thousand seventy                         Pencil Sharpener Video
viewings of his video that demonstrates
the way to empty out the shavings
from a certain pencil sharpener.
You'd think that when a copious
collection of customers had to look
online for help, product people might,
perhaps, come up with way to make
it easier to do the deed. As for me, when
figuring it out myself was done,
I became thirteen thousand seventy-one.
Instructions, no doubt, came
originally, but who would think
that dumping pencil scraps would
be so difficult (or diffy-seal, if French)?
Furthermore, our tendency to
trash such documented data
keeps the folks at wikianswers,
fixya, ask, and all the others without
need to find another way to spend their time.

Unlikely Affirmation

Just between the two of us a concept
that you need to comprehend. It isn't proclaimed
lightly, or because I can and want to make a declaration, but because you need to hear it, need to be reminded of a universal truth so often overlooked within the sermons saturated with such density of erudition I can scarcely squeeze between the loftiness and learning to present myself anew to those who sit in pews awaiting breath of life. Even then it's often choked back, lack of soft embrace for so much grace they
cannot understand it.
In a world where millions go to bed at night
without a thought of Me all day, whether pleasant
hours or not, you talk to me throughout your
struggles and your joys, sometimes blaming me
or thanking me but in those momentst(hough
you're not the only one on earth to do it even
at that time) when My name's lifted up, the very
ears of heaven listen. So many do not know Me,
do not care, think Me dead or relegated to a shelf
of dusty thoughts that once had meaning to the
simple and uneducated but no more, not in this
age of such enlightened progess. And yet you haven't
left me, though I've hurt you, stabbed you
with my lance of love that often looks so ugly
in darkened atmosphere of earth. Still you speak
My name, and love me, trusting Me with every
aspect of your life. I never liked the bloody vows
and severed limbs of perfect lambs upon the altar,
though I told the people to perform such rituals
to lead the way to better and more perfect sacrifice.
You have given Me so little, really, were another
keeping count (which we well know is done and
always will be) but the very conversation you continue,
dialogue with deeper meaning than you'll ever know this
side of glory, fills My heart with gladness, makes
me smile. Remember that, my daughter, that
your sins are nothing in My eyes when balanced
opposite the weight of love. Mistakes and blunders,
misconceptions, teachings false and gross disceptions
ever fail to tip the scales against the favor I bestow.
When I look upon your tears and silly strivings,
I hear Myself so praised within the parentheticals
of the little that you know and magnitude of what
you feel, that I stop to listen to the song I've
never tired of hearing.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

Two Brothers

I never met my brother,

but I wish I had. Believing
that I will one day is comforting,
but still, all those years I didn't have,
they count for something too.
I didn't get to sing him songs
or push him on the swing.
Didn't hold his hand or
give him french fries
from my plate or have a fight.
Didn't get to meet his girlfriends,
see him marry, turn me, just like
that, into an aunt.
He died so young, we never
got acquainted, and he never even
had a chance to know we loved him
as he was. I hope he knows it now.

I never met your brother,
but I wish I had. Believing
that I will one day is comforting,
but still, to learn of someone's life
entirely from the stories people tell
is not the ideal way. Stories, though,
are all you have, and memories,
the snapshots of a life you loved so
deeply that it changed the way
you thought , behaved, still changing
things for many folks who also
never knew him. That's got
to count for something.
He died so suddenly, you never
had a chance to say goodbye.
He always knew you loved him, though,
no question that you loved him
as he was, for who he was: brother,
son, uncle, beloved friend, gentle man.
He knows it still.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

Communication Error

There was a time I'd sit you down,
compelled to spill the beans or
dot the i's and cross the t's,
expand reality to match my own.
Understanding thus set on a
pedestal, results have not been good,
historically. For what I've learned
through trial and error, mostly
latter: it doesn't matter, really,
not to some, at least.
Some things are better left unsaid,
apparently. If someone wants to
live a life with blinders that
prevent full line of sight, then 
who am I to pull them off
so I can say I tried to tell you,
wanted to communicate?
I'm fine with this, will hold 
my tongue among those who
so obviously like my silence 
better than my conversation. 
If I were to talk, to open up, 
to let it fly, the chances are that I 
would say some things they'd 
really rather never hear. I know 
this only from the fact that saying such
things loudly in the past have
failed to find a way through 
erected barricade of blasé
and apathetic interest in
the realm outside of themselves. 
Whispers, neither, so I've got an easy
life ahead, lips sealed against
a flood of things, all said before
a thousand ways, content now
to dissolve into the quiet.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

Downpour

The lost, the last, the least,
losers, motley crew that only a divinity
might use with "mighty" as result.
Rethinking some of what
I've long been taught, I find
reminders that it's grace, not works;
a comfort to my soul. We're told
to strive, achieve, obey, believe,
and yet the repetitious mandate
in our holy book is simply:
rest. Rest in the fact our foe's
defeated long ago, forgetting not
forgiveness came at awesome
cost but has been paid already,
rest from trying to secure a blessing
from the one we worship in the tiny
thimble we have strength to lift
to heaven, and instead just stand
beneath the shower pouring down.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

Second Guess

Second guessing can be good

in retrospect. Red flags fly
into your face, you stop and
reassess. It's not the best way
to interpret life, temptation
there to overthink
(I do this all the time)
stinking up the day with doubt
and worry when most things
work out, eventually, just fine.
Those that don't, or won't because
of choices made outside your own purview
or variables you never knew,
well that's just the way it was
and is and will be. So relax.
Repose, those yoga breaths to
quieten stubborn stress of wishing
you had done things differently,
done it right, or done it better.  Things
may well have, even yet,
come out looking awfully similar
to how they are right now.
You're not so powerful that
everything depends on you.
Isn't that a nice change from
the dreaded expectations others
think they'll push upon your head?
Where is this going? What
apparition caused these words?
It doesn't really matter. I don't
even know. Could not care less.
Unless it bothers you, and then
we'll have to have a conversation
which I'd just as soon avoid.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

Hodgepodge of thoughts today mixed in with more emotion than is usually the case for a Thursday. Don't ask me what this means, because I haven't a clue. Or not much of one, anyway.  But I'm okay with that.

On What Would Be Adam's 29th Birthday

Adam Rogers Gillette
b. May 22, 1984
d. August 22, 2000

His was a memorable birth, the only one of four who got his start and welcome to the world within the sheets of the same bed. My head was leaning on his father as I strained to push  out ten-plus weight but when I held him in my arms, I fell in love. Every mother has her moments when she meets
her infant child, still covered in the sticky
stuff of inner care, but he came clean
to the embrace, water breaking as he burst
the bonds of mother's womb. Perhaps because I'd only know him sixteen years, the feeling of initial bond was never severed, never strained with rebel scowls or hurtful words. Ever hot or cold, he was a boy, and boys will say and do such things that break a mother's heart. If he said or did them, though, they've faded into whispers, overshadowed
by the all-pervading glory of his laugh.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

Moore Waits

"Behave!" you call as little boy walks out the door
or "Have a better day today!" as you let her out at school. You feed them pancakes, buy them paper, and at Christmas there's a planter in the somewhat corny shape of an apple or a pencil, showing you appreciate the teachers in your life, never guessing that they'll play a part in making sure your child can live another day. They've drilled for catastrophic happenings, but pinned beneath the rubble, they know that nothing could have possibly prepared the class for this. It's dark and quiet now
that freight train winds have traveled on to frighten other children,
and on the other side of town you pray your baby's
one who's still alive and look around at all the other parents
waiting and you hate yourself for hoping that if only one
more child is found, it will be yours,
but still you do.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

Kickin' the Moods Away

A classic devotional -
today's entry inspired the poem:
www.utmost.org

Moody Blues, the band that gave us
nights in satin (white) or Susan Moody,
my best friend from long ago, might
be the kind of moody I would choose.
Moody Bible Institute, a training ground
that's well-renowned for pious youth, forsooth,
would be preferred to moodiness
that hurts and jabs with words, and stabs
the heart. The start of this new week
began with eloquent reminder that seeking end
to moods, they're not reduced by prayer.
Perhaps some things are dealt with thusly,
not the dismal roller coaster our emotions ride.
To turn that tide, we have to act with more
than than fervent asking of the Lord.
A kick's the thing, swift, sharp one in
the derriere of demon moods that hurt one's self
the most, but also those we claim to love.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

Sunday Afternoon Haiku

The trio sketches,
waiting to swim at the pool.
Silly artists bud.







(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

Manners

beadsbraidsbeyond.blogspot.com

A striking family, three little girls with beads
that must have taken hours to arrange,
a handsome dad in dreadlocks and they
may have thought it strange I'd sit beside
them out of all the crowd of those
who looked a little more like me. One shyly eyed
the bag of chips I had and smiled a quiet query.
I offered one, a second to her cheery older sister.
"Did you say thank you?" said the dad, which held
a tone of something Daddy says a lot, and they assured
him that they had, which was an accurate
assessment of their conversation with this woman
who would never see the family again, or wouldn't be
remembered if she did. When time to leave, I complimented
him on sweetness children must be taught and told him
when I teach at school it isn't hard at all to tell the ones
who've learned the proper lessons from their birth,
at home. "You've got to start them young," he said
and beamed, not back at me, a woman whom he
didn't know, but at his girls, each hair bead touched
with hope that they will grow to be the princesses
befitting daughters of a king as noble and as kind as he.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

Unfair, Unfair

Children are the connoisseurs of Fair,

www.inkity.com
A shirt design that fit this.

sniffing out what they perceive as slight,
bloodhounds in disguise, discerning vague
or mild discrepancies, they ferret out the falsity
in what they're told or what they see with all
the righteous indignation of astonished Deity.
Justice must be served when scales are tipped
in their direction. Ignored, perchance,
when just the opposite is true? Construed
as giving them just one more chance, or
letting them slide by with promises of
future holiness, their standards are
appropriately high for teachers, parents,
and the like, with room to grow
for mirrored standards of their own.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

Greeting from Behind the Wall

I held her as a baby, watched her grow and graduate,
wished her happy birthdays with hugs and gifts and cake.
So few people really love us in this world it makes
no sense to push one far away, intensely building walls
that have no logic in the mortar. More years
must pass, perhaps, but one day stony pieces
will just crumble, that's the hope and prayer, at least,
and as the dust begins to settle, she will see that I'm still
standing here, just waiting, celebrating end to feud that never had
a chance. Love's always stronger than whatever lies or fears or
selfishness attempts to slither in and separate from folks
who truly care about our hearts and lives and happiness.
One-sided animosity propped up with shadow and illusion
hurts, no question, but its temporary nature infuses me
with something much like faith.


(c) Ellen Gillette

Qi-Rap (Not to be said too rapidly)

My qi
may be
out of whack.
I lack
feng shui
in the way
yang and yin
move within
my aura,
that of Laura
Ellen G.
(that's me).
Tai chi
DVD
may help,
cannot tell
just yet.
I forget
"cloud hands,"
how to stand,
tiger, horse,
snake (of course).
Seems slow,
you know,
but could
be good
since qigong
has long
been askew.
(Who knew?)


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

Housework

Copied from another blog,
this cartoon loosely quotes
the late Phyllis Diller, whose
opinion of housework is
nothing short of brilliant.

Rare day of work at home alone but
still, it's easy for so many other things
to sing their siren songs. In fact, I listen
for their call. They have my full
attention unless cast aside to focus
on some lesser task, though needful.
Phone calls, practicing a song, a speech.
I reach into my mind for even this, this
simple poem, to keep me busy and
distracted, not just from housework
but from stubborn, fearful, selfish thoughts
of wishing for a different day. But just
the knowledge that I could, if I were so
inclined, get in the car and drive away,
go to the beach, walk beneath a perfect
sky and smell the salty air, or drive
for hours more until I reached a mountain
road where honeysuckle grows along
a fence and air is heavy with its sweet
perfume...or I could hop aboard a plane
and wind up anywhere I could afford to
go. Just knowing that the possibilities are
endless, in a way, makes it a good and
decent choice to lay aside my musings,
rolling up my shirtsleeves, so to speak,
and bring the order back to outer life
that's mostly lacking deep inside.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

The Johnstown Flood

Where do we lay the souls of twenty-two hundred nine buried in the mud and silt who died in May so long ago when Johnstown could not stem the flow
of broken dam above them, built for sport
of men and women of great wealth?
God sent the rain, but someone made the tragic call to once again ignore the pleas by telegraph to get the people out. They'd heard it all before, and like the boy whose call of wolf brought
out the worst, this was the one time when the dam
would truly burst and pour the Little Conemaugh
upon the unwarned citizens below. And those who
had to have the South Fork dam so modified for
fancy hunting club to host elites, the bankers,
politicians, manufacturers of steel whose power
wielded in the courts would thwart attempts to
get survivors monetary help. Greed, then, was
the reason. Or inattention to the signs. Great disaster
caused by men without its equal for another hundred
and twelve years, when airplanes flew into New York's
Twin Towers. Greed had a factor there, as well, and
inattention to the signs of growing animosity. It
rained on that day, too, debris and paper falling
from collapse of yet another mighty edifice that took the
lives of twenty-six hundred six.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

Sisters Sweet and Sad This Day

If you're a woman hurting for the weight
of someone in your arms, the baby that was gone
too soon because such things just happen now
and then, or perhaps it was a plan, decision
made in quiet desperation, and you regret
the act -- or don't; in this case, how and why
don't matter much -- or the ache is muscle
memory for one who grew to be a handsome
son or precious princess with your smile and then,
without a warning, had to leave this earth too soon,
before you'd finished spending time and tears
investing in their life...if that is you, my sister,
know that on this day we set aside to celebrate
maternal blessings, you are not alone. Around
the globe, next door, right here are others who
were mothers and then weren't, but always will
be somewhere deep within their hearts. And
somewhere, I believe, those children are alive
and know your pain, and wish that they could
take your hands and kiss the tears away. If
you feel you need to ask for their forgiveness
(for losing them, in one way or another) you
are wrong. If you feel that life has robbed you
you of your purpose, you are wrong on this
point too. As long as you are living you can share
a mother's heart, a mother's love, with someone...
starting with yourself. For tell me, sister lonely,
sister sweet and sad, who needs that love,
right now, as much as you?

Early Mother's Day Card

Tomorrow is another Mother's Day,
another Hallmark holiday designed to
prompt us all to do what we should
do all year-- show honor to the ones
who bore us, tied our shoes and wiped
our bottoms, nursed or bottle-fed us,
cleaned our spit-up from their blouses,
made us blow our runny noses into
handkerchiefs they held poised until
we did, brought us up to be the decent
and hard-working folks we are. They
sacrificed for family when the kids
were all too small to notice. When
grown, with families of our own,
it's hopeful that we shower them
with periodic thanks instead of waiting
for a date upon a calendar. And yet,
although some grumble at the
calculated marketing there's not
a mother anywhere who doesn't want
to get a phone call, or a card,
or flowered weed pulled from the
ground just now and placed within
a paper cup, crayon caption: Mom.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

South Carolina

My birth state's most forgiving, it would seem,

electing man well known as liar and a cheat
to keep from voting for a woman, and a
Democrat, at that. Their flag is still the best
one in the union with its tree and moon,
though some might disagree. I moved across
the border when I was but three, but ever after
I am a sandlapper, whatever that may be,
and partial to the drawl of all who count
it as their home.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

Math as Muse

Pythagoras (570-495 BC?)
gets credit for both the
Pythagorean theorem and
the tetractys, shown here.

He didn't write, apparently,
leaving data for disciples to divulge
to audiences eager to be taught
the Truth they sought from someone
wiser than they thought that they
themselves might be. And yet
countless high school students find
it prudent to remember both his name
and number theorem which he
may not even've had a thing to do with.
I have no use for triangle's hypotenuse
most days, and on the rare occasion
when I try to find an area at all,
it's ordinarily a square, which Mr. P may also well
have been to be so into things like the cosmos and tetractys,
though I like to play the game myself
while waiting for my food at Cracker Barrel.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

I subbed for high school math today. If they only knew how little I remember...

Cleveland Cries For Joy

Rejoice! for though they were lost,
now they are found.

Three women rescued not by
knight in shining armor nor by long arm
of the law but just one chance man
(or more, depending on whose story
you believe) who heard their cries
and chose to get involved. A lesson
for us all to be more keen to odd things
that we see or hear or even
simply feel inside, gut instinct
that there's something wrong,
when patterns do not fit. And in the
meantime, learn the lesson of these
three and also of their families
that hope should never die.
The lesson for the men who held
them captive all these years,
in cruel bondage and despair should be
(if justice weren't so blind) a kind
of hell on earth, the taste of chains,
and periodic rapes by apes who share
declining level of morality.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight -- three names most of us would not have known at all, but for the quick actions and miraculous rescue this week from three trolls. I can't even bring myself to call them men, because no true man would behave that way.

Tuesday Cinquain

www.globalgranary.org

Tuesday
(neither dread end
to last weekend's pleasures
nor hump day till next one's arrive):
just sits.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

A cinquain is a five-line poem with 2, 4, 6, 8, and 2 syllables, respectively.

Susan Moody's Answer

Camp Building at WCU was
once Cullowhee's sole facility
for primary through high
school students.

When Mrs. Wachob told the class to write an essay after scolding them for being out of sorts, subject being why we'd been behaving like such children, my friend Susan Moody penned the perfect answer. "We behaved like children, Mrs. Wachob," she began in Zaner-Bloser letters with its loops and lines, "because that's what we are." So simple and concise, she wisely did not mention
that our teacher featured facial warts much older than her students. Scant decade from the womb, our classroom conduct had indeed been less than
what it should have been or could have been but
from sweet Susan's sage perspective,
even that made perfect sense. Some day we'd grow up,
gravitate to higher forms of savoir faire, decorum,
etiquette and all the rest, but nested there inside that little fourth
grade room, a college laboratory school, it was plain to Susan,
anyway, that Mrs. Wachob's question found its answer
in the obvious. The kids are acting like they're kids,
because they're kids, a fact that some adults lose sight of
and forget, regretting that they've lost more in the process
than capacity to laugh and play along the way. Of all
the essays I have been assigned throughout my life,
to read or write or study, it is Susan Moody's answer
that remains one of the truest.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013 

Camp Laboratory School was grades 1-12 near Western Carolina College in Cullowhee, North Carolina when I was there in the 1960s. High school boys drove the school buses during the winter along curvy mountain roads and everyone, as far as I know, survived. Mrs. Wachob was my fourth grade teacher. Susan Moody was my best friend. We moved to Florida the summer after and I only saw her one time since then. 

Cheater

Wearing her disgrace with something

When a woman was caught in adultery,
Jesus said to her accusers,
"Let him who is without sin
throw the first stone." Today we
don't stone people...just talk about them.

close to regal acquiescence, she embraces all the things she knows they say about her when she's not around.

If they knew what she'd endured

they'd be less caustic, possibly

more kind, requiring level of pure

love they've never known. Few

will take the time to think it through

and realize that though she cheated,

as they put it, she'd been cheated too,

for years, out of the spark of love

she tried so hard to fan into a flame.

The names they put on her for

falling, climbing really, off of pious 

pedestals they worked so long

to build, say not so much 

about character of the accused 

but volumes, rather, on the vicious

hearts of those who speak.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

Muted

The larynx, which  looks
somewhat like an alien

If I were a robot and forgot
to get recharged
I might feel as I do now, laying
('scuse me, lying)
on the couch without
a fever but sans voice, mais oui!
Vox popuLEE
is not the issue,
only vox of me.
(If you prefer vox popuLY
then my concern's the vox of I,
offensive to my ears and
anal nature when we're talking
about words. Interruption with
absurd idea: Perhaps we have a hidden
spot within that God can push
to turn us off. Mute us,
momentarily, for higher purpose
yet unknown. More probable,
a simple blend of common cold
and strain from talking too much,
too loud over chatty children
as I taught this week. Squeaking,
barely speaking, voice
must rest. I guess my body
thinks it needs to catch a wink
as well. No question that I'm overthinking
now. Perhaps my brain's the thing
that needs a brief vacation.


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

Loneliness Birds

Discouraging news tries to pull me in,

www.etsy.com

send me spiraling into abyss of
frustration and despair, line so fragile
between caring too much and caring
not at all. How to find the balance,
withholding help when hard lessons
be learned, without withholding love.
Loneliness birds circle to lay stone
eggs upon the heart, but one word
from you, one breath of hope, is all
it takes to scare them off.



(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013


One of my favorite movies refers to the loneliness birds, and it is a perfect analogy to that feeling that swoops down upon you, trying to drag you down. It doesn't take much to make them fly away...a good laugh, a kind word. And still, some people do not hear the positive things that give them strength to stand in the midst of adversity and disappointment.

The Fly Fisherman

Flying halfway round the world,
a thousand dollars spent, 
no, more than that, much more.
Wading in Alaskan stream so cold
it's barely liquid, and he wonders if the trip
this year was worth it, and then suddenly
she's there, right there, illusive, wily 
Steelhead, whopping big, so beautiful
he gasps and reels her in. Holding nature
in his hands he feels her life, her passion
for survival, looks her in the eye,
takes out the hook and takes
a picture with his prize. Thirty seconds later,
throws her back with tenderness into 
same stream he'll come back to 
hoping for a second rendezvous. 
In dreams, until then, she will visit often. 
No one understands that thirty seconds 
of such glory's worth all of the
waiting hours beneath blue skies and
in the rain. No one but true fishermen.
And, certainly, the fish.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

A friend wrote about a man from Switzerland visiting Alaska in hopes of catching a Steelhead Trout. His description was so vivid, it prompted this poem. 

Battle of the Sexes

"It's May, and by the way,
you may, if you'd like."

"Like what?" he snorts
and she retorts:"Take a hike."

"It's May, and you may,
that is, if you want."

"Want what?" he asks.
She masks ill mood in taunt.

"It's May, and you may,
I mean, if you wish."

"What wish?" says he, confused.
She's not amused, in anguish
and no more enthused about the much-sung
lusty month of May.
"It's May, you idiot, don't you get it?"
No? So now you may NOT. will not.
Clearly you don't even care,"
she cries. "Just go away."
And he, still unaware
of what he's done so wrong
throws up his hands and goes.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013


Some folks have a hard time coming right out and saying what they want. Then they get upset when no one reads their minds and delivers. Personally, I think life is too short for playing games. If you want something, ask. The answer may not always be yes, but at least you've communicated honestly..