When I’m not busy creating once in a life time experiences for anglers, or taking the helicopter for a spin, I’m writing poetry. Yes, that’s right.  Who said Alaskan men aren’t sensitive?! We have strong feelings and we know how to express them. Check out this classic I wrote as a youngster during a winter so cold that it inspired a love poem… to my stove.

I’ve sat in a tent nigh flickering lamp
While the sky’s devoured by stars
At forty below (and damn, that’s cold)
So fine is a friendship as ours.

We get along most of the time, for
She never snarls back or angers
She only desires a fond stoke and a bit of wood
Enough to revive her embers.

She put me to sleep with her warm lullaby
I snuggle quite close beside her
To wake in the morn with my tent still warm
Is why I have grown so fond of her.

Some people I’ve heard say it’s awful strange
Some say I’ve turned quite brushy
To speak of a stove make of tin and steel
As a lover (oh, so mushy.)

But when the sun has lost to the chilled north wind
And the night is blackening the sky
To warm numb hands nigh the flickering lamp
Just the two of us, my stove and I.

~ Mark Miller, Great (and Sensitive) Alaskan Lodge Owner

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