This week’s proof-of-work is a small snippet, because anything before/after requires more context than I can explain without, well, explaining…
“I’m not your enemy†the magician said. “I don’t have to be a friend; in fact you’re wise to keep in mind that I’m nobody’s friend. But I’m not your enemy. Not here, now, in this time and place.â€
and for World Poetry Day, 2014, because with all the bleah in the world, we need folk like John Ciardi…
There once was an Owl perched on a shed.
Fifty years later the Owl was dead.
Some say mice are in the corn.
Some say kittens are being born.
Some say a kitten becomes a cat.
Mice are likely to know about that.
Some cats are scratchy, some are not.
Corn grows best when it’s damp and hot.
Fifty times fifty years go by.
Corn keeps best when it’s cool and dry.
Fifty times fifty and one by one.
Night begins when day is done.
Owl in the shed, cat in the clover,
Mice in the corn – it all starts over.
© 1959 John Ciardi/The Curtis Publishing Company
Tricksy Magician