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06/20/12 - (1)
This Gift
This cribbage board you gave me, as a gift, last Christmas, Is a vivid reminder of my camping youth, sixty years back, When, on restless, dreary cabin-bound days, My summer friends and I, rained out/rained in, Consumed comics, plodded through assigned school reading, And played, repeatedly, that addictive, uplifting game, Requiring one deck of cards, a board with two 120-hole streets, And a pair of different-colored wooden or plastic pegs. Now, in this same village of several hundred residents, In this same poplar-pine-ash-birch Northern Wisconsin, Reveling in our wondrous, unscheduled togetherness, Over the last five storm-and-sun mornings and afternoons, We find ourselves outside the ticktock-ticktocking hours, Where I've been able to teach you to play cribbage, Awaken, in you, a new pleasure, to add to the games you love, Stoke the competitive fire that's always driven you.
And at this kitchen table, we've shared in learning together, I struggling to resurrect the rules and strategies, You grappling, for the first time, with the game's intricacies — Getting a 44566 double-double run for 24 or no runs, pairs, flushes, Calling out "muggins," for points missed by one of us, Turning up a jack, on the starter card, for an extra two pegs, Or counting "15 for two" or "31 for two, plus one, for go," When navigating the calibrations of this finely designed delight, Exhilaratedly racing, neck and neck, to the finish line, In the furious, sublime timelessness it takes to shuffle the deck, Deal out the six essential cards, and anxiously pick up the crib, To discover what destiny holds for you, in its hand. Linda, could you ever possibly have imagined, believed, That your gift would bring our love so much closer to us And, after a mere five days of trial-and-error sharing, Render teacher and student indistinguishable?
06/20/12 - (1)
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