"unawares" poems
Your laugh was a cloud
Loud
Enveloping
Mist which covered me without the
slightest resistance
insistence
I needed assistance to breathe
Your laugh shows I'm useful
shows there's a need
For us
as I feed on the delicious awkwardness we
shared
Caught unawares by being liked
It's a shame your laugh
was the cloud which hid
a trucks headlights
crash
shared
spent
Your laugh a narcotic cloud I refuse to repent
Jan 12, 2015
Jan 12, 2015 at 4:13 PM UTC
**ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S FAMOUS CIVIL WAR CONDOLENCE LETTER TO YOUNG ***** MCCULLOUGH ABOUT DEATH, LOSS AND MEMORY**
Executive Mansion,
Washington, December 23, 1862.
Dear *****
It is with deep grief that I learn of the death of your kind and brave Father; and, especially, that it is affecting your young heart beyond what is common in such cases. In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You can not now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say; and you need only to believe it, to feel better at once. The memory of your dear Father, instead of an agony, will yet be a sad sweet feeling in your heart, of a purer, and holier sort than you have known before.
Please present my kind regards to your afflicted mother.
Your sincere friend
A. LINCOLN.
Feb 13, 2016
Feb 13, 2016 at 11:00 AM UTC
'tis a sad sad
tale of woe
of which I sing
of gods and godesses
and their lessening
how forlorn
the goddess Ceres
once loved by all
and wooed by many
when unprovoked
and unforeseen
a war was wrought
'gainst fair queen
caught unawares
her throne assailed
her forces scattered
'twas all unfair
cast down she was
from lofty throne
no longer crowned
no more beloved
pierced thru
with many thorns
belittled
and besmirched
her reputation
and now her station
lost far beyond
re-incarnation
silently
she slips away
lost
and near forgotten
wounded
and rarely seen
her sullen thoughts
of malice reign
shamed and bleeding
plotting her revenge
till time and chance
provide the proper
circumstance
then all the thorns
that pierced her thru
she shook as many blades
and hurled
those bitter barbs as one
'gainst Hades' mighty gates
shaken he
from his dark slumber
his rallied forces
armed in numbers
their banners raised
on solar breezes
as trumpets blare
thru breathless reaches
voices shout
in protestation
slide rules locked
in astrometric
calculations
oh see how Ceres
scorned and mocked
has wrought
her rotting vengeance
on Pluto's frozen rocks
"Oh woe to thee
my Persephone
flee thee now
to thy father's house
for thy husband's hearth
hath been broken
and Hades' home
now just a token
My lofty edifice
a shattered wrack
an' all that's left
'tis a humble
wretched shack"
Pic Poem
https://www.pix-star.com/media/cache_local/download/23fc881b88e812947b061094f5694d32/JPlutoThouHastFallen-e52.jpg
.
Apr 22, 2018
Apr 22, 2018 at 4:02 PM UTC
The Grave said to the Rose,
"What of the dews of dawn,
Love's flower, what end is theirs?"
"And what of spirits flown,
The souls whereon doth close
The tomb's mouth unawares?"
The Rose said to the Grave.
The Rose said, "In the shade
From the dawn's tears is made
A perfume faint and strange,
Amber and honey sweet."
"And all the spirits fleet
Do suffer a sky-change,
More strangely than the dew,
To God's own angels new,"
The Grave said to the Rose.
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Now the dead past seems vividly alive,
And in this shining moment I can trace,
Down through the vista of the vanished years,
Your faun-like form, your fond elusive face.
And suddenly some secret spring's released,
And unawares a riddle is revealed,
And I can read like large, black-lettered print,
What seemed before a thing forever sealed.
I know the magic word, the graceful thought,
The song that fills me in my lucid hours,
The spirit's wine that thrills my body through,
And makes me music-drunk, are yours, all yours.
I cannot praise, for you have passed from praise,
I have no tinted thoughts to paint you true;
But I can feel and I can write the word;
The best of me is but the least of you.
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I sat by his bedside the day my father died.
The cancer that had riddled his body and soul now had complete control.
He fought kicking and screaming
the night the men in white came to take him on his final journey
like a great wildebeest struggling to get up on its front legs after being taken down by young lions. The way so many had said he
probably would since he fought his way tooth & nail throughout his life from the very beginning.
That night I sat on a chair at the foot of his bed staring out the huge ceiling to floor window of the medical centre at the many worlds hidden beneath thousands of rows of stationary lights and fluid winding rows of transient lights in-between and thought how the light of this window is just one of many thousands.
At that moment it seemed more like just one tiny speck in the vast star fields worlds above this city of light.
My father had spent most of his life just a short six-mile drive from here under the scattered lights of his hometown.
He turned to me and asked,
“That’s a big city. Where are we?"
Dementia had claimed his mind ten or more years earlier. It
slowly wound its way around his brain like a cocky snake
handler being choked by a boa constrictor unawares.
It seemed like it all caught up to his body. But it was good to see much of the bitterness and bad blood between us dissipated over the past decade.
On that night compassion ruled the day.
I could not say it then but it has been many years, where it seems compassion has forged with objectivity.
In a lucid moment he looked around the hospital room
bewildered as if he were a little boy who just woke up from a bad dream and asked,
“How did this ever happen?"
If only I could have told him.
Sometimes the truth cannot be spoken or heard. All I could do then was sit by his bed and lean in close to his ear and sing softly his favourite hymns.
By morning his lifeless
dilapidated body laid in the fetal position. His once ravenous mouth now forever frozen looked like a knothole in a twisted cedar tree.
All I can do now is hang my head and think of how weak and frail we humans truly are.
Like compassion forged with objectivity, weakness and frailty forges with fleeting moments of strength. We forge heroes out of these moments to tower above
the pedestals the former is made of to somehow minimize the pain of this often denied truth.
Feb 16, 2017
Feb 16, 2017 at 11:40 AM UTC
http://m.wikihow.com/Unhook-a-Bra
Pinch the eyelets but oh so gently,
To properly unhook the device to safely release paradise
From it's containment chamber.
This be one of many secrets to unlocking
The mechanism that holds some of the happy things
The human body artist conceived
To perpetuate the
Species.
According to the internet,
To extract joy to the world correctly,
Depends upon both your station and your
Positioning.
Thus, it helps to have GPS,
Which most men think is that pointy thing
Between their legs,
But is not.
Given the laws of gravity,
And other natural limitations,
Sadly that utensil of little avail
In this surgical operation.
If one desires to release the tension
Between the connectors of the protectors,
Guardians of her heart,
It will be necessary to
Let your fingers do the walking.
So cut and paste the title above,
In your web browser place!
Do your homework or risk feeling
As petite as a schnauzer.
Seems your natural tendency,
Righty or lefty, matters in this endeavor,
Of which I was unawares, oft pressing the incorrect lever.
This, the likely cause of my spectacular
Teenage
Fumblings and failures.
Had I known that fact,
In the days before the Internet,
Surely I would have brought along my
Catchers mitt
To step up my game.
Sage advice the article provides:
*Get a bra, and practice, practice, practice!
It gets easier with experience.*
But methinks that is a bit of a
Risky adventure,
Lest you be seen boy,
Practicing upon yourself,
Or even a dummy,
Dummy!
So cut and paste the title above
In your web browser,
Do your home work or risk feeling
As petite as a pocket schnauzer.
But the most important tip
This wealthy article of information provides,
The conclusion.
In the hour of your desperate struggle,
Drooping
Ego
And
Crushed
Pride,
Ask for assistance from one more practiced,
Hopefully nearby,
Whose help usually comes with a charming smile
of touching condescension
For your male idiocy and verbal in-articulation.
*She, unawares, that you have got her
Positioned precisely where you want!*
For when you lift her up,
In a free state, the one Divinity intended,
and in your arms, enfolded and protected,
In one grand poetic gesture,
Sweep her off her feet,
Her surprise will be
**..
O
So Touching!**
Aug 9, 2013
Aug 9, 2013 at 6:30 PM UTC
O, mosquito for taste of blood you seek,
For miles and miles you fly, within radius,
To earn a warm and idle skin to *****
By day in cravice dark by night with us.
O, mosquito you small but deadly thief;
On wings of silence came you trespasser,
A drop of blood you've stolen whilst to leave
Me unawares that I'm being the loser.
Alas, you left behind a virus strange,
Of potent evil concoction which spread,
And corrupted my veins by this exchange:
My good liquid for diseases I dread.
Like being bitten by a winged vampire,
My body shaking my soul is on fire!
Aug 7, 2018
Aug 7, 2018 at 8:03 PM UTC
I grew up ignored.
Not neglected, never abused.
Ignored.
Blithely alone with people unawares of my existence besides them.
They spoke about me as though I were not there, so I learned not to be.
I spoke myself through days that stretched into years.
"Don't draw attention.
Don't speak unless spoken to.
Don't be the interesting one.
They aren't interested in you, anyway."
Siblings stole the spotlight and I let them.
'Being ignored is like being abused, kind of. '
No, not really.
Being ignored is being silent and knowing what happens even though no one else does.
Being the ignored one means that you don't have pressure to achieve; you don't exist.
You are no better
No worse
Nothing at all.
You are nothing at all.
And eventually,
You learn to appreciate that nothing-at-all feeling.
It's freeing.
You don't have to worry about things like looks because you don't get seen.
Scars are ignored because they exist on you.
Making friends, though, is hard.
"How do you share like interests when you've never been important to have any at all?"
I'd ask.
"Figure it out."
I would tell myself.
"You have before."
Take on the skins of people around you.
Be who they want you to be.
Be replaceable in that way that makes you needed.
Simpler than it sounds, really.
Being nothing is so freeing
So calming
So boring
So cold.
And empty.
Like the nothing-at-all you are.
Jun 16, 2014
Jun 16, 2014 at 7:37 PM UTC
Relaxing peacefully on her lap
Her fingers ran through his hair,
And,speaking soft, soothing words
Waves of calm caressed him there.
Delilah used her feminine wiles,
Honeyed words dripped from her lips,
A sense of serenity enveloped his soul
From her tender fingertips.
The secret of his amazing strength
Was reluctantly revealed to her ears
Leading to open the floodgates
Of times of sorrow and tears.
On her lap he continued to rest,
Unawares of her subtle scheming;
Carefully his luxuriant locks were cut
With scissors sharp and gleaming.
Little could Samson have known
The intentions of her black heart,
Her cunning and overpowering charm
Hit him as with a poisoned dart.
Samson’s strength suddenly left him,
As weak as a kitten he became,
Delilah had truly duped him,
Although it seemed to her a game.
As hard as granite was her heart,
No true feelings of love were there
Else, why would she hurt him
With no chance of any repair?
His life had a very sad ending,
Of this most people have heard,
It’s recorded for our perusal
Within the pages of God’s Word.
The lesson to be learned
From this ghastly episode
Is that disloyalty is as acid
That the heart can corrode.
Like a wilting yellow lily
Under the sun’s searing heat,
Samson’s strength melted
Into a pool of utter defeat.
Remember this we should
And be careful how we act
Lest our deceptive hearts
This drama we re-enact…
Jan 19, 2012
Jan 19, 2012 at 1:45 AM UTC
Contemptuous of his home beyond
The village and the village pond,
A large-souled Frog who spurned each byeway,
Hopped along the imperial highway.
Nor grunting pig nor barking dog
Could disconcert so great a frog.
The morning dew was lingering yet
His sides to cool, his tongue to wet;
The night dew when the night should come
A travelled frog would send him home.
Not so, alas! the wayside grass
Sees him no more:--not so, alas!
A broadwheeled waggon unawares
Ran him down, his joys, his cares.
From dying choke one feeble croak
The Frog's perpetual silence broke:
"Ye buoyant Frogs, ye great and small,
Even I am mortal after all.
My road to Fame turns out a wry way:
I perish on this hideous highway,-
Oh for my old familiar byeway!"
The choking Frog sobbed and was gone:
The waggoner strode whistling on.
Unconscious of the carnage done,
Whistling that waggoner strode on,
Whistling (it may have happened so)
"A Froggy would a-wooing go:"
A hypothetic frog trolled he
Obtuse to a reality.
O rich and poor, O great and small,
Such oversights beset us all:
The mangled frog abides incog,
The uninteresting actual frog;
The hypothetic frog alone
Is the one frog we dwell upon.
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He was coming out hurriedly
While she was about to come in
They met at the glass door he and she
Accidentally
And both froze momentarily
And she startled and both stared
Unattered a second and eventually he
Said I'm sorry
He was taken in by her beauty
And so he struggled for his wallet
Gave his business card she looked she
Said oh really?
And one night when she was lonely
Remembered him she took out his card
A cellphone number she dialled suddenly
Accidentally
Since then they met occasionally
Not at her home and not at his office
At the park at cafes for she said she's
Always busy
Too occupied in a huge company to see
Unawares she's in a different division
Those whom he knew acted anxiously
So strangely
One day he asked will you marry me
Two fine kids later by merit moved his
Office next to the boss next to her he
Wants to be
Accidentally
Nov 19, 2017
Nov 19, 2017 at 12:41 PM UTC
When they look back on me
Let them all swear
He always stole diligently
Oft-times unawares
& If he plucked on your heartstrings
Another man's chords
He only piggybacked to reach higher
Mar 14, 2019
Mar 14, 2019 at 5:53 PM UTC
Yours is not a caged minor bird
That has forgotten how to fly
Who has not wings to unfurl
Or a voice to sing harks of warm air
Even on winter mornings
Glide the up-draft and all it’s edges
Where you said you’d fallen from
And where I could see my footprints
Lost in the distance
Far below
I have no fear of falling.
Dive bomb the rocks below
or take faith in the air beneath -
Flap and talk of leaving someday
Ready a perch in wanton relief
and take what you’re given
I am not a bird
I have forgotten how to sing sweetly
Others make noise
Blissfully unawares
of the harmonium which awaits
As a sound or a note overheard,
captured on the ear.
Without knowing the scale
Or the instrument
But the sounds or an urban minor bird
You are in essence
as effortless
as air Itself
Nov 2, 2012
Nov 2, 2012 at 10:15 AM UTC
To my heart I write these words,
Spare me from my sickness,
Unchain me from my shackles.
I walk only because I must,
Not yet for myself.
There are good days,
There are bad.
It's sad to see myself in such a state,
When my efforts reap little reward.
Today, once again, I find myself asking why,
Why?
Who knows.
I do my best to restrain myself from my own fires,
And still they burn,
But not as the flames in your candle, no.
They burn with a searing, slow, and silent heat.
My stomach churns at the thought of this lasting forever.
Reprieve me of my prisonous mind.
I would love to love myself, and yet I try,
And yet I falter.
Why do I hold myself to such perfectious standard?
I bear the standard of the anxious and depressed, meanwhile no one knows how to listen for the silent cries that even I speak unawares.
I tear my own heart asunder, but why?
The silent disease with no cure.
The infection that cannot be understood due to its silence.
So how are we to solve this puzzle?
Where none of the pieces fit?
Solve the riddle unspoken.
~Robert van Lingen
Jan 24, 2018
Jan 24, 2018 at 6:45 PM UTC
Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.
The woods around it have it—it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.
And lonely as it is, that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less—
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.
They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars—on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
3.4k
Crossing this path for the third time. God, I hope it's the last.
Sometimes I wish I knew what was in your mind.
Other times I just laugh.
Bethany, we have such a hard history. Childhood was a brawl.
I wish I had more compassion for you.
We were both so small.
Now here we are for the third time; oh what a shameful act.
Is it that we have too much pride?
Or perhaps it's a lack.
Oh, the horrors of family relations.
Oh, the binds that wound our salvation.
Oh, the lack of any sense.
Oh, the death of innocence.
Back at church camp, we did not know. We were caught unawares.
I ****** his **** (I had never before).
He kissed you on your nose.
I hear now he's engaged to a girl. I guess you won in the end.
But we both lost so much dignity.
He's still my Facebook friend.
Oh, we were so gullible.
Oh, it felt so horrible.
Oh, the lack of any sense.
Oh, the death of innocence.
Score number two was my fault, I guess. I loved him very well.
In middle school he called you his girl.
Now we're all going to Hell.
But in my defense, he was my first kiss.
He might have been yours as well.
I'm sorry, my sister, for liking his hair, and all the lies I tell.
Oh, now I've gone and hurted myself.
Oh, I can never ask for your help.
Oh, the lack of any sense.
Oh, the death of innocence.
Three days ago I discovered the third, which you confirmed in a text.
Did it have to be with my Paris love?
It was the first time I had ***
Still, I win. If anyone can.
You'll date him in Ohio. It's mean to say, but it's the truth.
You're just his beard and a smile.
I want to say this, little sis. I wish that we could be friends.
But secrets breed secrets, which breed some more.
And we all die in the end.
Jul 26, 2018
Jul 26, 2018 at 7:58 AM UTC
There was a Boy; ye knew him well, ye cliffs
And islands of Winander! many a time,
At evening, when the earliest stars began
To move along the edges of the hills,
Rising or setting, would he stand alone,
Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake;
And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands
Pressed closely palm to palm and to his mouth
Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,
Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls
That they might answer him.—And they would shout
Across the watery vale, and shout again,
Responsive to his call,—with quivering peals,
And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud
Redoubled and redoubled; concourse wild
Of jocund din! And, when there came a pause
Of silence such as baffled his best skill:
Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung
Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise
Has carried far into his heart the voice
Of mountain-torrents; or the visible scene
Would enter unawares into his mind
With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,
Its woods, and that uncertain heaven received
Into the ***** of the steady lake.
This boy was taken from his mates, and died
In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old.
Pre-eminent in beauty is the vale
Where he was born and bred: the churchyard hangs
Upon a slope above the village-school;
And through that churchyard when my way has led
On summer-evenings, I believe that there
A long half-hour together I have stood
Mute—looking at the grave in which he lies!
2.6k
I - WORDS LIKE PRISMS
The crystal awaits the perfect slant of sun.
The world turns just so and refracted light
Hurls a color blaze against the wall.
So it is when a long awaited word
Forms on the lips of the wise.
II - WORDS LIKE FLAX
In the fire of conflict,
Words fall to the floor like mounds of charred flax.
Red–faced saints gather clumps to themselves
To spin into finest thread for self-flattering raiment.
III - WORDS WITHOUT WORDS
When pain burrows deep in the marrow
Where words cannot assuage
A gentle touch can bleed some out
And channel hope back in.
No words can spell a kind caress.
IV - POISON WORDS
Beware the charismatic
Carrying a jar of poison pills!
Cover your glass when he passes your way
Or he’ll slip one in unawares.
V - LAUGHING WORDS
Absurdities and failures are the stuff of jokes.
Long live non sequiturs and double entendres!
We love a clumsy tumble into the drink
As long as nobody drowns.
VI - WORDS FOR BUILDING
Of course you can!
I place my total trust in you.
VII - WORD PAINTING
Mister Frost's words never made a wood
Or caused a harness bell to shake.
Even so I’d travel many miles
To see his imagined snow accumulate.
VIII - THE GIFT
My cat, Zoe, never says a word to me!
He doesn't have the tongue or lips or larynx for it.
He cannot fit his paws around a pen.
His brain’s too small for metaphors.
The gift belongs to us alone.
To craft words to build or **** or heal.
Forgive us Zoe for doing little with so much.
July, 2006
Jul 30, 2013
Jul 30, 2013 at 1:20 PM UTC
That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares,
We thought it was the Judgement-day
And sat upright. While drearisome
Arose the howl of wakened hounds:
The mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
The worm drew back into the mounds,
The glebe cow drooled. Till God cried, “No;
It’s gunnery practice out at sea
Just as before you went below;
The world is as it used to be:
“All nations striving strong to make
Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters
They do no more for Christés sake
Than you who are helpless in such matters.
“That this is not the judgment-hour
For some of them’s a blessed thing,
For if it were they’d have to scour
Hell’s floor for so much threatening. . . .
“Ha, ha. It will be warmer when
I blow the trumpet (if indeed
I ever do; for you are men,
And rest eternal sorely need).”
So down we lay again. “I wonder,
Will the world ever saner be,”
Said one, “than when He sent us under
In our indifferent century!”
And many a skeleton shook his head.
“Instead of preaching forty year,”
My neighbour Parson Thirdly said,
“I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer.”
Again the guns disturbed the hour,
Roaring their readiness to avenge,
As far inland as Stourton Tower,
And Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge.
2.5k
dinner Greenport-side, watching the shuffling ferries do
their sworn duty, a back ‘n forth wearisome toll,
while we sip a rose and a PBR, respectively and with respect
no enthusiasm afterward for anything but an early off to bed,
and slip into pj’s asap
me in my knackered wholly Hanes fundie knickers,
no thinking required
but she
retires, re-attires in a summery combo,
a gray sweat t-shirt and green and white
plaid pj pants
which she is unawares are my favorites
cause they lop off fifty years,
a teenage woman re-incarnate recreated
cause her figure now womanly full,
better than then
morning awake l, a disturbance of the peace,
recall a snuggling a wake up hug,
and her bottoms conspicuously
gone missing
over break fast I inquire
over yogurt and berries and a
smoked mozzarella omelette,
what happened to those plaid bottoms?
assuming I was innocent of any transgressions
as best I could recall
with a sheepish childlike grin,
that made look like she was twenty again,
to match the now yoga toned body,
she confesses:
forgot to tie the bowstrings
and they slipped down to my ankles
blessed and cursed I thought!
too much of a gentleman to take advantage,
AND my situational awareness was slipping badly,
but when a poem comes across,
ready and pre-writ,
I’m still young enough to grab aholt of it
and never let go
6/23/18
Jun 23, 2018
Jun 23, 2018 at 2:42 PM UTC
He switched off the TV and turned to his wife;
“That's the worst news report that I've seen in my life!”
She tidied their supper away and she said,
“I’ll be dreaming of that when we’ve long gone to bed.”
“Did you see all that famine, starvation and drought?
Well it sure makes you think what this world’s all about!
Global warming and climate change melting the poles;
I just wish someone used some pollution controls.”
He nodded and sighed as he straightened the chairs;
“Can’t believe all that bloodshed caught me unawares!
It’s just seems there’s a war every place that you look;
Religion and greed? Hell, they’ve written the book!”
With his arm round her shoulder they looked down below
as the Moon bathed the Earth in a silvery glow.
In her cute alien ear then she heard his grim mutter;
“Here we are in the stars looking down at the gutter.”
Jul 29, 2018
Jul 29, 2018 at 2:38 PM UTC
sitting in a bar unawares
sobriety is relinquished
incoherence
voicing hallucinated delirium
sweating profusely in distress
disconnected
without identity, without form
a long and terrible descent
into the effects of derealization
staring at nothing
listening to imaginary sounds
that cling to the dark draperies
that hang upon the walls of the mind
charting the outer geography of life
with invested inner humanity
Feb 2, 2013
Feb 2, 2013 at 11:46 AM UTC
"Mother?" Say the child to it's mom.
"Where, oh where, does the platypus come from?"
The woman smiled, and laughed,
and she told the story of where the platypus did come from.
To her sweet, darling, little one.
Once upon a time, there was a duck. And the duck was alone in the forest, because its family had grown up much too much. So the duck went to look for someone, to make his own little family with. The duck just wanted a place to belong, you see.
So the duck went to the lioness and said 'Miss would you like to make a family with me?' But the lioness was proud and scornful, and turned the duck away.
The duck was sad, of course, but he was much more saddened to think that he'd be alone. So he kept on going until he found a deer. But when he asked the deer, she ruefully claimed she already had a family. And that there was no place for a little duck.
So off he went.
He asked a spider, but the spider had a home.
He asked a walrus, but the walrus couldn't be bothered.
He asked a cat, but the cat just laughed.
It came to a time when the duck had asked just about everyone in the forest if they would love him. But right as he was about to give up he came across a stream, and in there a beautiful little otter was there waiting for him.
'Oh wow... uh' the nervous duck said, 'What are you doing there?'
'I'm looking for a way to make a home,' She said, 'I've been looking all day because I'm all alone and quite lonely.'
The duck swaddled and gleefully said.
'Well I don't know if you'll have me, but if there's no one better, you can take me in your stead?'
'But otters and ducks don't go together,' The otter complained.
'And why not? You're a little better under water and I'm a bit better on land. I think we could make a good team!'
'The forest will never accept us,' she continued, but--
'Will you?' The duck interjoined.
The otter sat there puzzled for a moment, and simply said,
'I'll try.'
"And it wasn't easy, my dearest little one. Love never is. It springs up in unexpected ways, and finds you caught unawares. You may find your love in a place you never would have thunk. But it is out there, if you're willing to search for it. I promise you that much."
"But... wait, mom! Where did the platypus come from?"
"Ah. Of course. The duck and the otter went on to have many children, a platypus each and every one. The result of their love was the perfect child, someone who could combine the best of them, and someone who could finally make them a home."
"Wow... mom, that is amazing! I wish I could be a platypus!"
"Hmm? But didn't you know, little one? The otter in that story is me, and you're my perfect little platypus who gave us our lovely little home."
The Mother embraced her child,
as the duck watched at the door, happily forlorn.
Sep 4, 2018
Sep 4, 2018 at 4:43 AM UTC
Long I followed happy guides,—
I could never reach their sides.
Their step is forth, and, ere the day,
Breaks up their leaguer, and away.
Keen my sense, my heart was young,
Right goodwill my sinews strung,
But no speed of mine avails
To hunt upon their shining trails.
On and away, their hasting feet
Make the morning proud and sweet.
Flowers they strew, I catch the scent,
Or tone of silver instrument
Leaves on the wind melodious trace,
Yet I could never see their face.
On eastern hills I see their smokes
Mixed with mist by distant lochs.
I meet many travellers
Who the road had surely kept,—
They saw not my fine revellers,—
These had crossed them while they slept.
Some had heard their fair report
In the country or the court.
Fleetest couriers alive
Never yet could once arrive,
As they went or they returned,
At the house where these sojourned.
Sometimes their strong speed they slacken,
Though they are not overtaken:
In sleep, their jubilant troop is near,
I tuneful voices overhear,
It may be in wood or waste,—
At unawares 'tis come and passed.
Their near camp my spirit knows
By signs gracious as rainbows.
I thenceforward and long after
Listen for their harplike laughter,
And carry in my heart for days
Peace that hallows rudest ways.—
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