When dark clouds start piling up across our sky, when the wind picks up and the trees start shaking, when the clouds overhead start to boil in a peculiar way and we start getting warnings about possible tornadoes, I start to think about my computer — with all its precious files — being fried. Or worse, being tossed, along with the rest of our home’s contents, across the next five miles of grain fields. So I open up my files, and my DropBox, and start transferring files to that safer cyber-place. Off they go: multiple files with half-polished verses, thoughts I hope to someday clarify and post.
Alas, for me it’s truly “Out of sight, out of mind.” Several years later, (like this week) searching for poems — I’ve been invited to read some of mine at a local coffee shop tomorrow evening — I come across verses I’ve written, hastily filed in cloud storage as the clouds churned overhead, then forgotten about. Here’s one I came across in my search for verses to read. I wrote this as a children’s poem; it may not be brilliant, but I hope it’s passable. I debated leaving the last stanza off, but will rather ask for your opinions.
Caterpillar Caution The caterpillar reached the road checked triple, left to right, fearing rumbling man-machines that made his life a fright. He hurried across the pavement; his dozen feet all speeded to get him across in rapid time by danger unimpeded. One thing that he never saw the foe he never heard, above him, hovering hungrily, a caterpillar-eating bird. So when you lock your back door and double-lock your front, do check out the upstairs, too, or you might end up lunch.
Christine's Collection 