Hi Arthur,
This is great!
I love the tone of the piece, the warmth that comes through! It's a pleasure
to read a poem that addresses a sentimental subject and yet avoids
sentimentalism.
I also like the way it roves about - the stanza that starts "if pink did not
exist...", and what follows in line after line, is astonishing.
I also like the iclusion of the phrase: "a smacked arse"! I often get tired
of praise and pleasure poems that avoid including painful things. This
poem's about pink but isn't wearing rose-tinted specs!
And a question: Would she know about a fire that's raked? Is that something
that belongs to a world that's passing and almost past? I think the last
time I was in a house with a coal fire was in the mid 70s... (oh, these nit
pickers! But a nit is a nit!). And is it/was it pink? (It's so long ago I
can't really remember...)
Bob

>>From: Arthur Seeley <[log in to unmask]>
>>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: Choosing a gift for a grand daughter( rewrite)
>>Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 15:34:36 -0000
>>
>>Offered originally as  piece of trite wordplay, it received so many kind
>>remarks I have worked a little harder at it.
>>
>>
>>Choosing a gift for a grand daughter
>>
>>
>>
>>She has this thing about pink,
>>
>>it's more of a yen than a thing,
>>
>>and yet more of a yearning than a yen,
>>
>>certainly it is an overwhelming desire,
>>
>>one might say, an all-consuming hunger,
>>
>>perhaps even  a magnificent obsession.
>>
>>
>>
>>If pink did not exist she would invent it,
>>
>>she would discover it, seek it out,
>>
>>find it, mine it,
>>
>>harvest it, hunt it to the ends of the earth,
>>
>>delve for it in the deepest places,
>>
>>dare blizzard and tempest,
>>
>>earthquake and hurricane for it,
>>
>>just for a jar of it, a sample of it,
>>
>>a spoonful, a soupcon, a smidgen, a smear of it.
>>
>>
>>
>>If pink was running for president she would vote for it.
>>
>>If pink was a prisoner held in durance vile
>>
>>she would dare a squadron of dragons to free it.
>>
>>If pink were a planet she'd send spaceships to it.
>>
>>If it were a religion she would convert to it, raise altars to it.
>>
>>
>>
>>Each night she sighs and sinks
>>
>>deep beneath a pink duvet and drifts
>>
>>through petalled dreams of Pinkdom.
>>
>>She wears pink, layer upon rosy layer of it,
>>
>>walks around glowing like a raked fire,
>>
>>or a smacked arse, like a carnation or a freshly boiled crab.
>>
>>She changes light like a glass of vin rose,
>>
>>like a dawn's beginning,
>>
>>or a summer evening melting into night.
>>
>>She shines like the inside of a pomegranate
>>
>>or the blush of a  bitten fig.
>>
>>She is quintessentially pink,
>>
>>pink to the very core of her,
>>
>>from tiny pink toe to the ribbon that binds her hair,
>>
>>tip to glowing pink tip of her fingers.
>>
>>
>>
>>This year, come Christmas, if its pink, its in.