Steaming Vittle Bits

[Tracy Mitchell]

~

Steaming Vittle Bits

Imagine reading a book while eating stew by the fireplace.
Flames dance in propane splendor, ceramic logs glow
while wind roils, ricochets through high rise canyons.

Wrapped in faux-flannel micro-fluff, you feel cradled
nurtured, ensconced by the fire in your blonde glider.
Aroma permeates the loft like welcoming arms
from miso lemon avocado ramen tofu stew.

Imagine, as your sage tenth-generation Paperwhite
abducts your inner being, ferries you to alternate terrenes
of psychic import and export – to field terraces

turned and tended by your granddad who teaches
tools and techniques, and to a rolling squash field
in late fall with your uncle and brothers.

Imagine reading a book while eating stew by the fireplace
huddled on horsehair as a winter storm ravages the plains,
shivers and wails around a stodgy hut, planted into the very ground
your family hopes will become their destination. Grampa coughs.

Imagine reading a book while eating stew by the fireplace
insert, newly installed in a birch plywood-paneled basement
family room. Lolling in an orange beanbag chair on the tile floor

you eat and read about kinfolk and the land – forebears pilgriming
back east, about pioneering in Kansas – and give over to a dream
of a brusk vibrant future in a shimmering metropolis.

Outside, sleet rails across vacant cliff-side balconies,
radiates in triangles downward from street lamps
through trails of traffic nine sheer stories below.

Imagine you savor a bowl of three-day turnip cod stew,
a Peacefield fireplace, a Samuel Richardson novel
and plopped beside your rocker on the braided navy rug

Juno and Satan doze in and out of consciousness, in turn
surveying the smells of the cottage and the sounds beyond.
Correspondence breathes deep on the corner of a maple desk.

Imagine all of the generations come together – lifting carrots,
rutabaga, turnips and sweet potatoes – to conjoin with steaming
vittle bits and broth from the soul of earth’s sustenance
seeping into a collective marrow, tethering you to a trail of ages–

a renascence while inside the pop, glow, crack, whiff,
the slow aroma of ash and ironwood coals. Imagine--
reading a book while eating stew before a fireplace.

~

[indar]

What a journey!

This poem taps into something I've been thinking about a lot lately although my take away might not be entirely in line with your intention. I am fortunate enough to come from families who curated their histories. On my maternal grandfather's side I know where the ancestral land near Vang North Dakota is, I've seen the last shreds of the original farm established as part of the homestead act of the mid 1800s.

Likewise, I've often visited the farm on my grandmother's side near Eagle Lake Minnesota. Both developed by immigrants from Scandinavia.(Lutheran) I've been told what those great plains snowstorms were like and some of the hardships. But I also know that those sod-buster relatives of mine were helped by the government during hard times by something called per dium, the land was free and there was opportunity they would not have enjoyed in their homelands. 

I have been thinking of these things lately in relation to discussions of the difference between those of us who have benefitted from their families' ability to accumulate land and assets and those who have not.

While your poem might not be intended to specifically address these issues, it does address how out of touch we have become with the really real. Humorous take on a growing problem.

I do like my microfiber jammies in the evening however.

Although I only commented on the content of your poem I am stunned speechless by the approach, the style, the imagery---love love love it.

[indar]

Rereading what I wrote, I meant to say there is a touch of humor in the N's invitation to compare what we luxuriate in now as romanticized remnants of survival techniques from our ancestors. BTW the older I get the more in touch I feel with them.

[Colm Roe]

You can't beat a good book and a fire...or a good poem!
And this is a very good poem.
seeping into a collective marrow, tethering you to a trail of ages– Wow!
As Linda said 'what a journey'.
I hope (in 10 generations time) they'll still embrace hygge, and will be allowed to (at least) burn a few candles.
Love this T, you are on your A game.

[Dave]

Hey Tracy
I love the poem and all the layers and images and the incredible flow. Living in Germany I have my problems with the title because on the one hand it makes think of a German pronouncing English very badly and saying vittle instead of little: thus before reading the poem, I was expecting some kind of parody. Sincethen I can 't read the titlewithout thinking of monty python or some kind of Blazing saddles style cowboy movie.

Once I am in the poem all that is gone. Brilliant writing.
Dave
 

[penguin]

~

Steaming Vittle Bits

Imagine reading a book while eating stew by the fireplace.
Flames dance in propane splendor, ceramic logs glow
while wind roils, ricochets through high rise canyons.

Wrapped in faux-flannel micro-fluff, you feel cradled
nurtured, ensconced by the fire in your blonde glider.      - glider is a kind of chair?
Aroma permeates the loft like welcoming arms
from miso lemon avocado ramen tofu stew.                           - maybe "of miso,,,"?

Imagine, as your sage tenth-generation Paperwhite
abducts your inner being, ferries you to alternate terrenes
of psychic import and export – to field terraces

turned and tended by your granddad who teaches              - that's a lot of alliteration, maybe too much!
tools and techniques, and to a rolling squash field
in late fall with your uncle and brothers.

Imagine reading a book while eating stew by the fireplace
huddled on horsehair as a winter storm ravages the plains,
shivers and wails around a stodgy hut, planted into the very ground
your family hopes will become their destination. Grampa coughs.

Imagine reading a book while eating stew by the fireplace
insert, newly installed in a birch plywood-paneled basement
family room. Lolling in an orange beanbag chair on the tile floor

you eat and read about kinfolk and the land – forebears pilgriming
back east, about pioneering in Kansas – and give over to a dream
of a brusk vibrant future in a shimmering metropolis.                        - brusque? 

Outside, sleet rails across vacant cliff-side balconies,
radiates in triangles downward from street lamps
through trails of traffic nine sheer stories below.

Imagine you savor a bowl of three-day turnip cod stew,
a Peacefield fireplace, a Samuel Richardson novel
and plopped beside your rocker on the braided navy rug

Juno and Satan doze in and out of consciousness, in turn
surveying the smells of the cottage and the sounds beyond.
Correspondence breathes deep on the corner of a maple desk.

Imagine all of the generations come together – lifting carrots,
rutabaga, turnips and sweet potatoes – to conjoin with steaming
vittle bits and broth from the soul of earth’s sustenance
seeping into a collective marrow, tethering you to a trail of ages–

a renascence while inside the pop, glow, crack, whiff,
the slow aroma of ash and ironwood coals. Imagine--
reading a book while eating stew before a fireplace.

~
 

What a fine poem, I love the rhythm, takes its own time to get where it's going. The details are so rich and the repetitions aren't at all irksome. Not so sure about the title, mind.