Oh to be an Earthling

Oh to be an Earthling
They got golden sunrises and blood red sunsets
And they take their cats and dogs
and pigs and horsies and turn them all into pets

O to be an Earthling
With rain and sun and snow and humidity
But also smog and traffic with jams
And all sorts of songs reminding me of other stupidity

Oh to be Earthling
Hope Taylor Swift finds sleep some fine day
She seems to do her best fretting at four am
But after Red I’m sure we’ll all find a much better shiny way

Oh to be an Earthling
Football, marriages, first dates, birthing babies—
Which I don’t know nuthin about—
That glance from you while looking at me, all these maybes

Oh to be an Earthling
Christmas Day, El Eid, Chanukah, and Wesak
Glorious celebrations and the food
And the presents we never wanna ever give back

Oh to be an Earthling
The rivers and hills and dales and the coasts
All hidden behind borders and lines drawn in distant sand
All to support some tyrants tired mistaken stupid boasts

Oh to be Earthling
Who can learn and grow and extend hands in love
After posing, thinking, weighing, and looking for the high road
When all is so small beneath all those stars twinkling in a night sky above

Oh to be and Earthling
Music, books, movies, fudge, crawfish, gouda, and more
Champagne, merlot, chardonnay? The heck you say.
Such a plethora of plentitude with second helpings galore

Happy, healthy, safe and free
Won’t you be an Earthling with me?

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With A Big Green Bow

Twas the barest wee knock on the old lady’s front door.
Agatha Agnes made her way, slow, from the divan to answer.
Things this past year for her had left her tired and sore:
Bisquick Cat had been ill, while her Bob finally passed from cancer.

Peering from her peephole Agatha Agnes could just see
The head of her little girl neighbor with her new winter bonnet;
And couldn’t help but wonder what new evil this could be.
Patiently, the little neighbor held a box with a big green bow on it.

Agatha Agnes pulled slowly open her door of oaken ebony
And said to the little girl struggling with the mighty box:
“Leslie Katherine, what on earth have you brought to me!”
The little girl then blushed hot crimson from bonnet to her socks.

“Murry Chwistmus,” tried Leslie Katherine, offering up the bundle.
“Why, thank you,” answered Agatha Agnes, taking the box in hand.
Finally freed, Leslie Katherine bolted the porch skipping off in a trundle.
Agatha Agnes slowly went back inside to see about this present too grand.

Back in the divan, our old lady went to pull off the grand green bow,
Then pulled apart the plain white paper on the box, and opened the flaps:
Lifted out from the packing peanuts a large silver frame made a show—
An old black and white portrait of Agatha Agnes next to her Bob in his riding chaps!

Later Agatha Agnes would learn the story how this last Christmas present came to be:
Bob realized his cancer would soon win and wanted to surprise his bonny bride.
So, retrieving the silver frame with his old college degree inside from U of Mississippi—
He took her favorite picture of them happy and young, in love, and slid that inside.

Bob had met with the neighbors and asked Leslie Katherine for a special boon:
To present the box to Mrs. Jefferson, at her convenience, on Christmas Day.
The Cabbotts readily agreed, even though it was an early hot, summer June.
But they remembered; and after lunch, Leslie Katherine had made her careful way.

Real Love is timeless, despite those events that cause breath-catching with maybe a spilt tear.
Cherish all your loved ones, be passed or present: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!