Emily Veinglory

I like this:
"But my soul still revels
in the stench
of mangroves,
the crunch and slither
of life."

but i'm not connecting the dots even though i keep scribbling on them mentally. Explain please?
Maybe because i keep seeing a grove of erect penises when i think "mangrove" - sorry - i can't help myself sometimes...
 

Basically I am pining for New Zealand. I never much liked the wide open American spaces although it is growing on me. But to me the ultimate is a mangrove swamp, at dusk. That's real nature.
 

Lovely poem. I can understand the homesickness. There are mangrove swamps in the Florida keys, which I visited frequently growing up, so I know what you're talking about. The keys are one of the few things about Florida that I miss (too many people for me these days).
 

I like "the crunch and slither of life"

I've always found that no matter how much I like where I live now, I will always miss home.

So your poem has touched 'home', Emily.
 

Took me a long time to find cornfields beautiful, too, Emily. (I was in NW Ohio. And a summer in Indianapolis)

I think I prefer the mangroves, too.
 

Dang, I've always lived in the midwest. The "crunch and slither of life" would make me scream like a girl and hide, I think. I'm not sure I've ever even seen a mangrove swamp.

But I miss hills and trees where I'm living now. It's flatter here than where I lived in Iowa!
 

I really like this. Especially:

"for the first time
I found a cornfield
beautiful."

It took me about that long to admire Lake Ontario when I moved to Toronto, and not be annoyed that the Great Lake was not the ocean that I missed every minute of every day. I was really surprised when I realized one day that the lake is about stillness.

I also like the length of the poem. It gives the emotions more weight.
 

I like the imagery. I felt like I was in a mangrove swamp.
 

Wow, can I relate to this one! I grew up in eastern Oklahoma, but I never really appreciated the verdant, humid lushness of it until I lived in the relative starkness of the Colorado Rockies for ten years.

As for the cornfields, I've been married to a farmer for too long -- when I look at them, I'm thinking profit potential instead of artistic potential. :D Wonderful job!
 

eh, make me feel homesick too!

I grew up on a farm that was surround two sides by waterways that were slowly getting more congested by the mangroves, I remember as a kid being scares the crabs would get my toes as I went squishing through the mud, and my gumboots getting sucked in and getting stuck so I'd end up with one boot on and the other foot covered in mud.

Oh, and mangroves in NZ, theres no alligators or snakes, just little bitty crabs, so the slithering is more about eels than anything nasty (though I've had a hatred of eels since, well, forever! Don't know why. I'd never stick my feet over the edge of the dingy in certain parts of the creek cause I was SURE there were eels waiting to slither around my legs and nibble my toes!
 

I can really identify with how it feels to move to a place with a completely different landscape. I can feel the homesickness/nostalgia in this.
 

yuppers - i was the only idiot that didn't "get" mangroves. sigh.
why do you all put up with me?
 

You know, my husband took me to Australia and New Zealand for a second honeymoon. One of the best times of our lives. There is nothing the amazing emerald green we saw after the rainfall on our way to the Hot Water beach. Gotta go back there someday.

And your poem is beautiful too ;)