The Ballad of Tux
It was just this morning. That it was.
At the table there sat only three.
There was Tux, the foam Linux penguin.
The others were my oatmeal and me.
I never do tire of oatmeal.
But the penguin was growing old.
I stared at its unmoving face
As my oatmeal began to get cold.
The face on this penguin companion,
Which ten years on my table had been,
Speaks with remarkable eloquence
Despite its immovable grin.
I found my thoughts drifting to boyhood
To my grandmother’s green backyard
Where I gathered and ate fallen walnuts,
Eating insides, the shells to discard.
From that walnut tree, a rope swing hung
That could lift you to clouds in the sky.
From the world below, it made you free.
Like an eagle, it helped you to fly.
To sky I’d climb from wine grapes below.
The magic swing would descend and rise.
To its rocking reeling rhythm and rhyme,
Plans and dreams would emerge and arise.
As that swing left the orbit of earth
Making people the size of small fleas,
So, too, I would leave for strange lands afar
And sail away across distant seas.
One day, I would be a brave hero -
And defeat villains, nefarious,
And with help from my trusty sword, I’d be
Extricated from jams, precarious.
When I could, I’d refrain from violence,
And peacefully take Billy the Kid.
Then, I’d be off to the world’s other side
To the Taj Mahal and the Great Pyramid.
I’d go to London and Paris
And see artworks of beauty and grace
And resplendent castles of kings and queens
And one day marry a princess named Grace.
“Wait a second”, interrupted the penguin.
“You never did that or any such thing,
Before or after that conference
From whence me to this table you’d bring”.
This penguin had the nerve to tell me,
“It’s junk heap time for you and your sword”.
So, I tossed him in the recycling bin
Along with my flattened cardboard.
Copyright ©
David Crandall
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