Where Do All the Pooh Sticks Go

Where do all the Pooh sticks go, you lovingly selected,
dropped in the water, on their way? Then ran across the bridge
to witness how they fared, alone, without your guiding hand.

All now slither, out of sight, eager in the rippling stream;
dashing, tumbling, burbling to experiences; wondrous and new.

Wonderlust will end too soon for some; a moss-grown boulder,
old, cantankerous, will add some budding sticks to others
whose passage it has stalled among the rotting vegetation.

Others careen carefree past, carried aimless by the stream,
just going with the flow, attracting others in their wake.
A peppy school of sticks along with twigs and leaves, some trash,
washing wastefully along wherever water takes them.

Some will find their place; a home for butterfly, bug, or toad,
adding to a beaver's dam or a poke-stick for a child.
A purpose ascertained; a voyage happily at close.

Sticks don't always have a choice; it's where the river takes them.
But hopefully, a few will reach the sea; their journey's end,
and wash up happily, retired, on sun-soaked Spanish shores.
Copyright © | Year Posted 2021

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Krutsinger Avatar
October 24, 2021 at 1:10 AM
I love the term "pooh sticks" - I want to borrow it, but it would be stealing. "Others careen carefree past, carried aimless by the stream," This is hilarious!
Miller Avatar
October 24, 2021 at 7:04 AM
Pooh Sticks is a game invented by Winnie the Pooh (AA Milne) and is played by generations of children here in the UK; the phrase is in the common domain now as it is in all the dictionaries. I just wondered what happened to them, of course as a metaphor. Thank you for your kind comments, Terry.
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