GLOSSAL TONGUES

August 23, 2002

Tongues of poets, like tongues of frogs,
Often go awry,
And get them into social bogs
A great deal more than meets the eye.
The frog looks up and sees a bug
And lashes out with slingshot tongue,
And sometimes finds he is too smug
To check the bugs who he’s among.

The frog begins to blink his eyes
As foreign bugs inflict their sting;
This frog is met with rank surprise
As now his ears begin to ring
Yes, poets tune their ear to words,
And sometimes write a potent verse;
But then, their dish becomes potsherds
Of glossal words unrehearsed!

So help me, Lord, to weigh my word
Upon the scales of other’s ears,
Realizing it may seem absurd
To those of more or lesser years;
To those you’ve dealt a different hand,
Who’ve never walked along my trail,
Lest those who’ve lived in different land
Find my poem of no avail.