Kim Ode made me cry.....

I have a friend named Kim Ode.

Her last name is pronounced with (OH-DEE) and it miffs her when people don't get it right.

Kim write columns for the StarTribune newspaper, sometimes she writes for Variety, and other times she writes for "Taste".

My favorite days are when I wake up and one of her pieces are on the front page.

Living in Saint Paul, I catch some flack for buying the Mpls paper, but I support people, not boundaries.

Over the years Kim and I have baked a million different things together.

Usually, the 2 of us will do this on a Saturday when the bakery isn't running production.

Can you picture that?

Two friends in a huge baking warehouse, smiling and creating products that fill the "Capitol City" with wonderful smells.

During the holidays of 2007, Kim swung by the bakery, I don't remember what we put in the ovens that day.

But that doesn't matter because my highlight was a gift she gave me.

It was an envelope.

Immediately, being a boy....I thought "If it isn't cash, nothing good comes in envelopes. I want a big a** box with bright foil wrapping paper!"

But then I opened it, and a piece of paper fell out.

I picked it up off the floor and started to read it.

It was a poem, and about 1/2 way through....I thought I was going to cry.

As a boy, I was trained to think crying made me weak. As I've become older, more free thinking people have said it would liberate me.

Either way....I just don't like the process, it makes me feel awkward and vulnerable.

For the first time ever....I am going to share what my friend wrote special....just for me.


INK

by Kim Ode

When Johnny Cash died
They printed memorials
Ragged columns of ink
Reprising his life

Kids still pick out his songs
Finding frets with their fingers
While squinting at chords
Carbon dots of his strife

Ink flows from pens
Ink flows from needles
Ink asks if we're certain
Then winks when we nod

Monks labor in abbeys
Illuminating the word
Shakespeare's quill dipped and scratched
Soliloquies for the crowd

Treaties and grocery lists
Lyrics and lies
Inks fluid nature
Both confirms and denies

Ink flows from pens
Ink flows from needles
Ink asks if we're certain
Then winks when we nod

Tattoos are stories
Absorbed by our pores
Injections of chapters
On biceps and calves

Epiphanies, tributes
Drunken stabs at eternity
It walks the line
Lending all a blue beauty

A mentors rye formula
A chessmasters log
A bakers crude parchments
a journal from abroad

Silently, surely
The hand drawn black letters
Deliver a message
As honest as dogs

Ink flows from pens
Ink flows from needles
Ink asks if we're certain
Then winks with a nod

THE END

How do you know when somebody loves you?

How do you know when somebody is a best friend.

I think the answer to that is when they can write about your life....better than you can yourself.