Subject: Ginger Jar
From: Christopher W. Thomas (creatician@poetic.com)
Host: dnb-as1s55.erols.com
Date: Tues Dec 30, 1997 at 11:35AM

In the front of my house a dirty grey sky looms above

Interspersed with trees amidst a smattering of love
But the snow flurries which I know well do abound
Are just a tease through front windows above ground

But when I look out to the side of my house almost level
To the hill in the back of it where twigs lay all disheveled
Snow flurries do rage on as though they will never stop
And look as tho they're pounding on my sill and the top

Of a lovely tall greenish-gold-colored mottled glass ginger jar
Something I actually won in the past and carried home in car
And promptly filled it with assorted nuts right to the very brim
And there they have all sat through the years since I was thin

And nuts were my primary form of nourishment - a simple snack
Which I would crack open with the wooden nutcracker in the back
A piece I've had for years - in the form of a naked Egyptian Mummy
Whose legs I would spread apart whenever I needed to fill my tummy

And then pick from the jar a walnut, almond, Brazil, pecan or cashew
Then to squeeze the wooden legs together to break the nut into two
And then I would pick through the pieces of broken shell very gingerly
Until I got to all of the luscious nut-meat inside and chew on them freely

Replacing the lid each time back on top of that tall mottled-glass ginger jar
Carefully, so the plastic vacuum seal would seat properly to keep them hard
Then reposition the naked lady on the orange bookshelf in front of speaker
So the next time I needed her services, I would then not be at all bleaker.

Christopher W. Thomas
11:33am Tues 12/30/97