The Tree, The Birds, The Squirrels And The Wind

A short story for children:

Part 1

The massive Tree, its girth rivaling a banyan and the branches reaching out at least a hundred feet, stood at the edge of the village beyond the water tank, set back from the high-road to the town. A host to many generations of birds and small animals – the unassuming Sparrows safely nested in the lush branches of the Tree while the Parrots in brilliant green and the Squirrels in their brown-grey fur made home in the numerous holes in the vast trunk. It was never by mistake a Parrot entered the abode of a Squirrel or the other way round!

All day long, the air was filled with the muted chatter of the Sparrows, punctuated by the occasional exuberance of the Parrots and the bouts of noisy drumming by a pair of black-plumed Woodpeckers that kept the Tree free of wood-boring insects.

The Tree ensured its lodgers had access to a generous year-round supply of juicy fruits.

I had almost forgotten all about him and how could I? There was a wise old Owl that kept the night-watch from the high branches of the Tree.

That wasn’t all. The Tree had visitors too. From the village came bathers to sit down and chat away under the Tree before and after their bath in the tank. On some days, there was even a traveler or two from the high-road pausing to rest under its shade.

But the Wind was a regular. It all started long ago when the Tree was young and growing:

‘You’re very fortunate – you get to see so many places. Here I’m standing rooted to this place.’

‘You’re the lucky one getting to stay put. Do you see there is no rest for me at all? All the time I have got to be on the move, or I’m dead.’

‘Well, I’ll lend you the fragrance of my flowers and fruits – you may carry them with you wherever you go.’

‘I’ll clean up all the grime off the leaves, remove the dead ones, and give a good massage to your tired limbs.’

And the Tree and the Wind became thick friends ever since.

It was an idyllic world until one morning…

The Wind brought the news. The heartless village Chief had, in a meeting, proposed to auction the Tree for its wood. It was expected to fetch a good price, enough to build a community center and more. And the auction was scheduled in a couple of days.

The Tree froze speechless. How could they come up with a thought like this? When the news reached them, the birds and the animals sinking their beaks and teeth into the juicy pulp of the fruits with customary gusto, drew back like from hot coal. Everyone was horrified pale. Life without the Tree was unthinkable.

But what could be done now? They felt quite powerless before the juggernaut – man’s self-interest in disregard of his eco-mates. Hours of deliberations yielded no solution. The Tree, in utter despair and mindful of its lodgers, advised them to move out to a safer place and leave it to face its fate.

They were not the one to give up. While chewing on the crisis, finally someone suggested they wake up the wise old Owl and consult him.

So they did. And they saw, for the first time, a glimmer of hope.

Part 2

It was the day of the auction. The Bidders from the village and the neighboring had gathered under the Tree. There was a quick inspection poking the Tree here and there, asking a question or two.

The birds went very quiet.

As the Bidders were waiting for the Chief to come in, from nowhere a strong gust of wind blew in knocking the turbans off the heads of a couple while others barely managed to hold onto theirs. Not an auspicious beginning, it was felt.

The Chief arrived with his ‘records’ man. After a short preamble the bidding commenced.

‘A 1000 rupees.’

‘2000, here’

‘They are low-balling it. The wood is teak like and my guess is it will easily fill up three cart-loads,’ the Chief muttered inaudibly into the ears of his assistant.

Before the next bid was shouted out, suddenly, as if on a cue, there was a minor commotion from the Squirrels gathering at the base of the Tree, purposefully drawing the attention of a Bidder standing closest. As his eyes came to rest on what he saw, for a moment he was speechless. When he regained his tongue, he cried excitedly: ‘Look here, look here, I know for sure – it wasn’t there before.’

Another Bidder, also drawn to it, exclaimed: ‘This is a miracle!’

A third Bidder joined: ‘A clear sign of disapproval from the Gods.’

In a short while they all had seen it. They hurriedly conferred among themselves and turned to the Chief resolutely: ‘Drop it, Chief. We are mercifully saved just in time from committing a grave sin.’

As a vexed Chief walked up to see what made the proceedings go awry, advice came from the eldest among the Bidders: ‘Chief, let us bring offerings, light a lamp and get the priest to do the pooja and build a decent shrine here.’

The Chief too was awe-struck when he saw a panel of a clear likeness to Hanuman freshly carved in relief on the bark at the base of the Tree. There were even flowers and fruits strewn about in the front as offerings.

As the Bidders dispersed, the Tree let out a sigh of relief and thanked, from the bottom of its heart, the Woodpeckers, the wise Owl, the Parrots and the Sparrows, and the Squirrels and not forgetting the Wind that embraced them all in cool comfort.

End

Hanuman is the son of Vayu, the Wind God.

http://nagpurbirds.org/ has these beautiful photographs and a whole lot more of our feathered friends sighted in and around Nagpur.

A Matter Of Death And Life!

A young man called Ramaswami died an untimely death.
His parents, wife and a nine-year old son were crying bitterly sitting next to his dead body.

They all happened to be the disciples of a holy man whom they called ‘Maharaj Ji’.
When Maharaj Ji learnt that Ramaswami had died, he came to visit the family.
He entered the house and found the family wailing inconsolably.
Seeing Maharaj Ji, the wife started crying even louder.
She sobbed saying, “Maharaj Ji, he has died too early, he was so young … Oh! I would do anything to make him alive again. What will happen to our son? I’m so helpless and miserable.”
Maharaj Ji tried to pacify the crying lady and the old parents, but the loss was too much for them to come to terms with so easily.

Eventually, Maharaj Ji said, “Alright, get me a glass of water.”
He sat near the dead body and put the glass next to it. And said, “Now, whoever wants that Ramaswami should become alive again may drink this water. Ramaswami shall come back to life.”
“Really, Maharaj Ji?” There were shouts of incredulous delight.
“You have my word for it,” assured Maharaj Ji.
There was a mad scramble for the glass, even the old parents making a dash for it.
“Wait, there’s more.”
They froze in their tracks for a moment and looked at the Maharaj Ji with undisguised “Now, what?”
He added, “But the person who drinks the water shall die instead!”

Silence..! They flopped down in disbelief and despair.

“Come, did you not say that Ramaswami was the sole bread-winner of the family? Who would take his place? It is a fair exchange, isn’t it?”

One look at the Maharaj Ji told them this strange transaction was not negotiable and he was serious about it.

The wife looked at the old mother and the old mother looked at the wife. The old father looked at Ramaswami’s son. But no one came forward.

Then Maharaj Ji said to the old father, “Babuji, wouldn’t you give your life for your son?”
The old man said, “Well, I have my responsibility towards my wife. If I die who will look after her? I cannot offer my life to you.”

Maharaj Ji looked questioningly at the old woman and said, “Amma?”
Amma said, “My daughter is due to deliver her first baby. She will be coming to stay for a month. If I die who will look after her and the newborn? Besides who but me will take care of this old man here? Being a diabetic, he needs special food to be prepared for him.”

Maharaj Ji smiled knowingly and shifted his gaze to the young widow.

She widened her tear-filled eyes and said imploringly, “Maharaj Ji, I need to live for my son…If I die, who will look after him? He needs me, please. Don’t ask me to do this sacrifice.

Maharaj Ji asked the son, “Very well, little boy, would you like to give your life to bring back your father?”
Before the boy could say anything, his mother pulled him to her breast and said with heat:

“Maharaj Ji, Are you insane? My son is only nine. He has not yet lived his life. How could you even think or suggest such a thing?”

Maharaj Ji said, “Well, it seems that all of you are very much needed for the things you still need to do in this world. It seems Ramaswami was the only one that could be spared. That’s why God chose to take him away. So shall we now proceed with his last rites? It’s getting late.”

With that, Maharaj Ji got up and left.

End

This is lightly edited piece out of a forward from Gul, source not known.

It Rained Today!

Well, this is what Silverstein does – making you think you too can do it! Though, there is no telling what happens thereafter:

It was in the Chemistry lab when the skies went to work.
Incessant rain beating down like a drummer gone berserk,
punching leaks in the ramshackle roof overhead,
grimy puddles on unwashed tiles like mold on bread.
Hissing acids, soapy solvents, potent powders plotting together,
could cause a fire that no rain or hose can douse ever.
Before a cut, a burn, a slip or, worse, an explosion,
we were ordered out in abundant caution.
No raincoat, no umbrella. As I stood under the awning,
sneezing and shivering, I couldn’t help wondering:
‘Watch both sides before crossing the street.’
‘Don’t accept from strangers however sweet.’
‘From road-side stall, don’t ever eat anything…’
Well, as regards me, my Dad misses out nothing.
But this deluge – he didn’t tell me a thing about.
Though, from morning,
laden clouds and flightless birds said it without a shout.
Perhaps his computers,
at the weather office didn’t figure this one out.

End

A CEO of Campbell’s Explains the Power of “AND”

Am an avid reader of Dan Rockwell’s posts in his blog ‘Leadership Freak’. One of his pieces put forth a great idea, I thought, in beautifully simple terms. Reproduced here with the kind consent of Dan:

“Leadership principles that work the best change us the most. Trouble is leadership is situational. That’s why many principles work in one context but not another.

I ask Doug Conant, retired CEO of Campbell’s Soup, to share the universal leadership principle that most changed him.

The genius of “and”:
Doug said moving from “or” thinking to “and” thinking most changed his leadership. He said Robert Schuller, a man he never met, sent him a book about being tough minded and tender hearted. That’s when the genius of “and” began gripping him.

“Or” thinking:
“Or” thinking reflects a scarcity mind-set. Forcing a choice between short-term sales targets and building long term potential is scarcity thinking.

Choosing between tough-minded or tender-hearted limits your potential.

“And” thinking:
“And” thinking embraces abundance thinking. You don’t have to choose between tough or tender; be both. Be tough on standards and enthusiastic about people. Doug explained the most fulfilling leadership experiences occurr when performance expectations are extremely high and people care deeply for each other.

Highest potential:
“And” takes your further than “or”. “Or” thinking limits your potential by creating artificial barriers to creativity, excellence and diversity. “And” thinking creates challenges, opportunities, and innovation.

Wisdom is simple:
When I hung up the phone, I thought how often I’ve been an “either/or” rather than a “both/and” leader.

In the past, I put people who followed me in either/or situations, unnecessarily. I created artificial boundaries based on either/or thinking.

Three letters can change you and your leadership – A. N. D.“

End

You may visit http://leadershipfreak.wordpress.com/ for the pleasure of reading his posts.

The Day God Went Into Hiding

Kindly sit up and take note – the longest running feud in human history is about to be laid to rest! The theists and the atheists, the religious and the irreligious, the believers and the non-believers have no real reason to get into each other’s hair – in fact, both are right! I’m not, in support of my contentious statement, looking to rational research, scriptural backing, wisdom of the wise or saintly revelations. To make you see the point, I’m taking you to the day and the scene when it all happened and let it speak for itself:

There was nothing about them to make the three men of a kind but for… Yes, they were all unflinchingly devout in their own ways.

The pawn-broker woke up in the morning praying in his mind: ’Lord, I have lined up a very profitable deal with the jeweler for the unclaimed diamond stones. If it goes through, I’ll break eleven coconuts in your temple and feed the poor.’

The thief was all by himself when he prayed aloud: ‘Lord, you and I know very well how bad was the last week. If you a send a fat cat in my way, I’ll part with one-sixth for you.’

The inspector at the police chowki lighted a couple of agarbathi’s (incense sticks) pleading for speedy solution in at least a couple of cases, a necessary pre-condition for his promotion.

It was close to noon. The pawn-broker stepped out in a crisp spotlessly white dhoti, clutching a cloth bag tightly in his hands. He sported a larger than usual sandal-paste mark on his forehead.

The thief had observed the routine of the pawn-broker’s frequent trips to the jeweler. He looked up at the sky, mumbled his thanks and made his move.

All happened in a flash – the bag was snatched, the pawn-broker raised an alarm, two cleaner-boys giving the parked cars their daily wash quickly sprang to action.

When he was half way up the street, the thief looked over his shoulders to see how he was faring. It was clear in a few seconds the men would catch up with him. It was sad, but the escape plan had to be put into action. Such a waste.

The pursuers paused to retrieve the bag and its contents flung in the middle of the vehicle-less street.

So the plan had worked again flawlessly, giving him precious seconds to dash to the far-side of the main-road. Luckily for the thief a public bus was picking up speed after a halt and it wasn’t difficult for him to jump aboard.

Before the men could get to the small silken pouch spilled from the fallen bag, a curious crow dived from its perch and made off with it as the men watched in dismay.

The inspector looked glum. The pawn-broker was a generous patron. One more unsolved case notched up to his discredit?

It was little consolation the silken pouch was found, after an intensive search, lying somewhere in the neighborhood, empty of its content.

The stones had killed the crow…left to rot on a pile of debris.

The night fell. The three unhappy men retired to their beds. Tomorrow was another day. There would be prayers.

End of scene.

Well, that was it. It is my strong submission God went into hiding at some point in the above proceedings – though the precise moment cannot be ascertained – leaving the reins wholly in the hands of Karma, to some place beyond prayers and pleas…in my personal view, He cannot be faulted.

It’s plain for all to see He is there and He isn’t there.

I take a bow. Over to you, folks!

End

Secret Inside

How often we have stood before a painting and wondered about the artist’s intent! Here is a beautifully simple piece and the artist’s take, no less beautiful.

We dance round in a ring and suppose,
While the secret sits in the middle and knows.
– Robert Frost

“…This is a new painting, in size about 11″ square on paper…I call this piece Secret Inside.

I really didn’t know what to think of this piece after I painted it. All of the elements fell into place strictly from a compositional standpoint, without a lot of rumination over meaning or intent. They simply worked in the context of the scene. It wasn’t until I had time to step back and study it for a bit that it started to reveal its meaning to me. Or at least what it means to me. You might see it differently.

I began to see the interior scene as the secret self, the part of us that we seldom expose to the outer world, which is seen out the window. The guitar represents our hidden self-expression and creativity. The painting on the wall (looks suspiciously like one of mine) represents the desire for beauty and the book on the table, the desire for knowledge. The empty bottle symbolizes our weaknesses, our vices. Perhaps the desire to forget.

The table shows what might be seen illuminated in a glimpse from the outside and the overall darkness of the interior reveals itself as that dark part of us that is never visible to the outer world. Or which we hope is never visible.
As I’ve said many times before here, this is only my personal take on this. You might see something completely different, perhaps something much less symbolic or you might see it as something darker, more sinister.
It all depends on your own secrets inside…”

It’s GC Myers again working his magic with amazing simplicity! Check it out at http://redtreetimes.com/2011/06/27/secret-inside/

Many thanks to him for kindly letting me carry it here and spread the joy!

End

Lessons from the Lizards Tail

The black-and-white cat was paying rapt attention to something in front of the fireplace.

Crouching house cat, hidden lizard

He had that ears-cupped-and-tilted-forward look, and was holding absolutely still, eyes wide open. He does this only when there is something of great interest to him, and that is almost always something that is about to become part of his toy repertoire.

I got up, and looked at the spot on the tile. It looked like a stick. Suddenly, almost all of the stick shot across the room, leaving a wiggling piece behind. Nature works really well. The thing was a lizard, and it had dropped its tail, which wriggled appealingly, allowing my cat to focus on it, while the rest of the lizard scrambled to safety away from the cat.

Picking up the now-tailless lizard with a paper towel, I stepped out the door and shook the paper towel out gently, close to the ground by the fig tree. The little lizard body tumbled out.”Must have picked it up too hard,” I thought, feeling guilty. I thought I’d killed it, after the cat had missed it. Just as guilt waved over me, the lizard pulled out of its frozen position, and shot, tailless, up the fig tree to safety.

Some lizards drop their tails to save their lives, leaving their prey interested in the wiggly, but not vital to life part. I’d never seen it work so well. The cat was perfectly happy to let the business part of the prey escape if he got to keep the funny, wiggly part.

It seems like such a good idea to be able to drop a non-vital body part to save the important working parts. We don’t come equipped with convenient tails, but we do drag around burdensome “tales”–the stories we drag around as baggage. The sad story of how our parents didn’t give us what we needed. The mean roommate in college who was so thoughtless. The boss who wasn’t a mentor we’d hoped for, but gave us all the drudge jobs.

All those stories pile up and slow us down. They make us prey for anger, stress, decisions based on revenge and stored-up resentment. We can drop our “tales” of hurt and pity, leave them wiggling for someone else to become fascinated with. Because they aren’t helping us. No doubt, it’s hard to give up the story we live, the perspective we have on them, how we make choices based on past hurts and injustice. And those stories of injustice get us a lot of attention as our friends condemn those who hurt us. That’s what friends do. They think it’s helpful, although often attention simply encourages clinging to behavior.

Recasting our past is hard work and not appealing. The work of letting go of the past means admitting that our perspective isn’t working and deliberately looking for a new perspective, one that allows us to live a less-burdened, less blame-riddled life. It won’t be done in a single day, but the small steps and work is certainly worthwhile…

We can’t change how our story began, but we can change how it continues and build for a happen ending.

End

This inspiring piece comes from Quinn McDonald, a creativity coach and author of the book ‘Raw Art Journaling’, helping people choose the story they want to live. Visit her blog at http://quinncreative.wordpress.com to read more. Thanks, Quinn, for your kind consent to reproduce it here.

The Lighthouse Keeper’s Tale

Here is an interesting personal recollection from someone in an unusual profession. I bet it is not easy to find a second!

By Bob Vickers

In 1969 I applied to become a Lighthouse keeper with Trinity House, the organisation that manages all of Britain’s lighthouses. There were over 100 of us who went on the initial training course but only two of us – myself and one other –lasted the course and became lighthouse keepers. Clearly, the job of lighthouse keeper is not everyone’s cup of tea!

There are three different sorts of lighthouse. The main group is what are known as ‘Land Stations’ (like Flamborough); the second type is ‘Island Stations’ (like Lundy Island) and the third kind is ‘Tower Rocks’. These latter are lighthouses ‘out on rocks’ out at sea like Small’s Lighthouse in the Irish Sea. After I had been accepted as a lighthouse keeper, my training then involved being sent to lighthouses all round the country in order to gain experience of the different types of lighthouse that operate in different places. We were not given any choice as to where we went; we were just told and had to go to where we were posted. My first posting was to Skokholm Island off the Pembrokeshire coast.

A lighthouse keeper’s daily routine worked like this. Each lighthouse had a team of three men and we worked a three-day rota system. On Day One we were on watch from 4.00am to 12noon and from 8.00pm to midnight; on Day Two from 12noon to 8.00pm and from midnight to 4.00am; and then Day Three was our ‘off duty’ day. But ‘off duty’ still meant that we had to carry oil up to the lamp, clean the lens and wash the floor. This work pattern was standard for lighthouse keepers throughout the country.

My training finished at Small’s Lighthouse in the Irish Sea, 26 miles out off the coast of Pembrokeshire. Life ‘on the rocks’ was interesting. Every six months a supply vessel would bring drums of fuel oil, which, of course, had to be pumped up into storage tanks at the bottom of the tower. Then the keepers had to carry the oil to the top of the tower in 5 gallon gerry cans, 30 gallons every three days up about 120 steps. As well as the oil, fresh supplies of drinking water were also delivered. Each member of the three-man team did a two-month shift at the lighthouse and we were each responsible for our own personal supplies so when we started our two-month stint we had to bring enough food with us for those two months. At our initial training we had been taught how to be self-sufficient and one of our first tasks had been to learn how to bake bread for ourselves! We also learned how to survive without modern luxuries. Our sleeping accommodation consisted of curved 4′ 6″ bunks and for toilet requirements we used a bucket at the top of the tower and then emptied the contents into the sea below. Washing ourselves involved a strip wash on the midnight shift when the other two were in bed.

Whilst I was ‘on the rocks’ at Small’s, I learned how to do kite fishing. We would make a kite with a 10-20 foot long tail, put bait on the tail and then float the kite down to the water from the gallery. As soon as a fish took the bait and got hooked, the kite would fly up into the air off the surface of the sea and we would pull it into the gallery.

Flamborough Lighthouse

I first came to Flamborough Lighthouse in 1981 and worked for two separate periods giving me a total of 13 years in all. The lighthouse here was built in 1806 in just five months without the use of any scaffolding. The lens weighs 3½ tons and floats on a 10 cwt bath of mercury. As there is no frictional loss of energy in mercury, the lens can be turned using just a single finger. The lamp itself is 3.5 kilowatts strong and this produces through the lens 3.5 million candle power. Being a land station, living conditions here were rather different from Small’s. For accommodation, I was given the Fog Signal Station cottage just a short walk from the lighthouse – no longer did I need to use a curved bunk for a bed. However, because the chalk cliffs are under constant attack from the sea, there are numerous caves at Flamborough and every six months we had to be lowered by rope to check whether the cave under the Fog Station had increased to a size thought to be dangerous.

By the 1970s it was clear that the role of the lighthouse keeper would soon be coming to an end. The increased use of helicopters meant that service engineers could be regularly transported to offshore lighthouses, carry our their maintenance work and then be flown back to the mainland. It was only a matter of time before all lighthouses became automated and we keepers became redundant. By the time I finished work in 1994, I had been employed on 22 different lighthouses; on some for just a month, on others for much longer. At the end of our career we were presented with a medal from Prince Philip in recognition of our long service.

Was it a lonely job? Well, yes and no. I had only two or three companions on any one lighthouse. But I made life-long friends. You had to learn to accept other people just as they were and not as you would like them to be. You had to get on with your mates, even though you might sometimes disagree with them.

I think that’s not a bad rule for all people, no matter what their job in life.

End

If this has kicked up your appetite for more of the quaint, how about tales from a lock-picker, a coast guard, a scullery maid, a grave digger, a gold panner…or about a farmer family that has been producing cider for over six generations now or about the symbolism of horse-shoe or the apple tree purported to be Newton’s chief instigator? Well, John and Nancy Eckersley have put these together and much more about places and people at their site: ‘http://johneckersley. wordpress.com/tales/’.

Since John Eckersley retired from teaching Geography nine years ago he has been able to devote much of his spare time writing walking books for Christian Aid. When his wife Nancy retired as Vicar of Heslington in York, they decided to do a major sponsored walk for Christian Aid for a project in Sierra Leone. It was the Land’s End to John o’Groats walk, or ‘LEJOG’, the ultimate challenge for long-distance walkers.

While according to some experts the shortest possible LEJOG walking route, entirely on roads, is 868 miles, John and Nancy opted to stay off-road whenever feasible. Devising their own route, of course, their walk measured 1,280 miles at a leisurely 10-12 miles a day, taking five months to complete the whole walk, collecting the stories along the way.

Thanks to John, Nancy and Bob for their kind consent to reproduce Bob’s tale here.

The Little Boy And The Old Man – Poems of Shel Silverstein

(Contd.)

Whatif

Last night, while I lay thinking here,
some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
and pranced and partied all night long
and sang their same old Whatif song:

Whatif I’m dumb in school?
Whatif they’ve closed the swimming pool?
Whatif I get beat up?
Whatif there’s poison in my cup?
Whatif I start to cry?
Whatif I get sick and die?
Whatif I flunk that test?
Whatif green hair grows on my chest?
Whatif nobody likes me?
Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?
Whatif I don’t grow talle?
Whatif my head starts getting smaller?
Whatif the fish won’t bite?
Whatif the wind tears up my kite?
Whatif they start a war?
Whatif my parents get divorced?
Whatif the bus is late?
Whatif my teeth don’t grow in straight?
Whatif I tear my pants?
Whatif I never learn to dance?

Everything seems well, and then
the nighttime Whatifs strike again!

Cloony The Clown

I’ll tell you the story of Cloony the Clown
Who worked in a circus that came through town.
His shoes were too big and his hat was too small,
But he just wasn’t, just wasn’t funny at all.
He had a trombone to play loud silly tunes,
He had a green dog and a thousand balloons.
He was floppy and sloppy and skinny and tall,
But he just wasn’t, just wasn’t funny at all.
And every time he did a trick,
Everyone felt a little sick.
And every time he told a joke,
Folks sighed as if their hearts were broke.
And every time he lost a shoe,
Everyone looked awfully blue.
And every time he stood on his head,
Everyone screamed, “Go back to bed!”
And every time he made a leap,
Everybody fell asleep.
And every time he ate his tie,
Everyone began to cry.
And Cloony could not make any money
Simply because he was not funny.
One day he said, “I’ll tell this town
How it feels to be an unfunny clown.”
And he told them all why he looked so sad,
And he told them all why he felt so bad.
He told of Pain and Rain and Cold,
He told of Darkness in his soul,
And after he finished his tale of woe,
Did everyone cry? Oh no, no, no,
They laughed until they shook the trees
With “Hah-Hah-Hahs” and “Hee-Hee-Hees.”
They laughed with howls and yowls and shrieks,
They laughed all day, they laughed all week,
They laughed until they had a fit,
They laughed until their jackets split.
The laughter spread for miles around
To every city, every town,
Over mountains, ‘cross the sea,
From Saint Tropez to Mun San Nee.
And soon the whole world rang with laughter,
Lasting till forever after,
While Cloony stood in the circus tent,
With his head drooped low and his shoulders bent.
And he said,”THAT IS NOT WHAT I MEANT –
I’M FUNNY JUST BY ACCIDENT.”
And while the world laughed outside.
Cloony the Clown sat down and cried.

Reads like Raj Kapoor’s ‘Mera Naam Joker’?

End

The Little Boy And The Old Man – Poems of Shel Silverstein

(Contd.)

Some short pieces in this post:

The Little Boy and the Old Man

Said the little boy, “Sometimes I drop my spoon.”
Said the old man, “I do that too.”
The little boy whispered, “I wet my pants.”
“I do that too,” laughed the little old man.
Said the little boy, “I often cry.”
The old man nodded, “So do I.”
“But worst of all,” said the boy, “it seems
Grown-ups don’t pay attention to me.”
And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.
“I know what you mean,” said the little old man.

God’s Wheel

GOD says to me with a kind
of smile, “Hey how would you like
to be God awhile And steer the world?”
“Okay,” says I, “I’ll give it a try.

Where do I set?
How much do I get?
What time is lunch?
When can I quit?”

“Gimme back that wheel,” says GOD.
“I don’t think you’re quite ready YET.”

Forgotten Language

Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly
in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . .
How did it go?
How did it go?

One Inch Tall

If you were only one inch tall, you’d ride a worm to school.
The teardrop of a crying ant would be your swimming pool.
A crumb of cake would be a feast
And last you seven days at least,
A flea would be a frightening beast
If you were one inch tall.

If you were only one inch tall, you’d walk beneath the door,
And it would take about a month to get down to the store.
A bit of fluff would be your bed,
You’d swing upon a spider’s thread,
And wear a thimble on your head
If you were one inch tall.

You’d surf across the kitchen sink upon a stick of gum.
You couldn’t hug your mama, you’d just have to hug her thumb.
You’d run from people’s feet in fright,
To move a pen would take all night,
(This poem took fourteen years to write–
‘Cause I’m just one inch tall).

Weird-Bird

Birds are flyin’ south for winter.
Here’s the Weird-Bird headin’ north,
Wings a-flappin’, beak a-chatterin’,
Cold head bobbin’ back ‘n’ forth.
He says, “It’s not that I like ice
Or freezin’ winds and snowy ground.
It’s just sometimes it’s kind of nice
To be the only bird in town.”

Messy Room

Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
His underwear is hanging on the lamp.
His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair,
And the chair is becoming quite mucky and damp.
His workbook is wedged in the window,
His sweater’s been thrown on the floor.
His scarf and one ski are beneath the TV,
And his pants have been carelessly hung on the door.
His books are all jammed in the closet,
His vest has been left in the hall.
A lizard named Ed is asleep in his bed,
And his smelly old sock has been stuck to the wall.
Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
Donald or Robert or Willie or–
Huh? You say it’s mine? Oh, dear,
I knew it looked familiar!
Picture Puzzle Piece

One picture puzzle piece

Lyin’ on the sidewalk,
One picture puzzle piece
Soakin’ in the rain.
It might be a button of blue
On the coat of the woman
Who lived in a shoe.
It might be a magical bean,
Or a fold in the red
Velvet robe of a queen.
It might be the one little bite
Of the apple her stepmother
Gave to Snow White.
It might be the veil of a bride
Or a bottle with some evil genie inside.
It might be a small tuft of hair
On the big bouncy belly
Of Bobo the Bear.
It might be a bit of the cloak
Of the Witch of the West
As she melted to smoke.
It might be a shadowy trace
Of a tear that runs down an angel’s face.
Nothing has more possibilities
Than one old wet picture puzzle piece.

Bear In There

There’s a Polar Bear
In our Frigidaire–
He likes it ’cause it’s cold in there.
With his seat in the meat
And his face in the fish
And his big hairy paws
In the buttery dish,
He’s nibbling the noodles,
He’s munching the rice,
He’s slurping the soda,
He’s licking the ice.
And he lets out a roar
If you open the door.
And it gives me a scare
To know he’s in there–
That Polary Bear
In our Fridgitydaire.

(more to follow)