Grandma with her crooked fingers
Told me all her secrets
She could not speak, she could not hear
Her fingers spoke, her eyes heard all

Grandma with her crooked fingers
Told me to always walk straight
Crooked things she said are bad
Unless they're crooked body parts

Grandma with her crooked fingers
Told me to always speak straight
Crooked words she said plant doubts
Unless they're crooked with natural fault

Grandma with her crooked fingers
Told me to always work straight
Crooked ways she said dig graves
Unless they're crooked by form

Grandma with her crooked fingers
Told me how to live a life-
With her crooked ways and crooked words;
In a not-so-crooked manner

~Moniba.

My dear Icarus,
Have you brought tales of gold for me?
You-- the master of self,
The one who held his own thread and shears.
Don't share of how hard you beat your wings
But how the air beat against your brow.
Don't echo your father's faded cries
But sing the songs of the Aegean sea--
Sing them only for me!

My sweet Icarus,
Is the world as grand as the travelers say?
Are crumbling maps and hand-spun tales nothing to compare?
I've read of Sicily, where your father rests his mourning head.
I've traced its rivers as they curved against my torn papyrus.
Sicily, the land of Aetna.
Oh, to watch the land shake at the beckoning of her call
(Oh, to fly free of these labyrinth walls)!

My darling Icarus,
Tell me-- is life better above the blanket of Grecian blue?
Is it better than what the Fates designed?
Is it better than what I hold today
(please, let it be more than today)?

My beloved Icarus,
Will you give me your wings--
The mingling of feather, wax, and dreams.
Will you give me your wings and
Your will to yearn higher and higher

So that I too can reach the city of gold.

Wee ***** Tadpolly
Never knew who his
mom and dad were
He had always heard
that they had croaked
in the middle of the night
. . . ribbit . . .