We Are Grateful

We have joyfully shared comradeship
for so many years, it is difficult to
imagine life without her. She has
trusted us to return with her, safe and
content, after all our adventures,
none of which, as a small and delicate
dog, had she ever shirked, but met full
on, trustingly and as curious as we.

She has canoed lakes and rivers with
us, portaged long stretches of broken
trails, snuggled deep down into our
shared sleeping bag after torrential
forest storms, climbed mountain peaks
under the sun's fierce glare, leaped
boulders that daunted us, her guides.

She has outlived those of her canine
peers when as a puppy, she was being
introduced to the arcane world of canines
and their human pack leaders. She has
grown progressively fragile, dim of sight,
faint of hearing and inexplicably mute.
Her dark eyes see far-off visions that we
cannot see, and she stands motionless,
waiting for something we cannot know.

She must linger yet awhile with us,
for nothing, including her growing
feebleness, has yet convinced us she
must leave. She yet craves life, so it
must be carefully nurtured. The great
adventure that lurks too near, which will
be hers alone this time, has been waylaid
and we are, for the moment, grateful.

A Gentle Giant

He's a good neighbour, a perfectly nice
man, who never fails to ask your opinion
and advice, perversely to ignore it and
proceed elsewise. The possessor of a
stately blue spruce, he claimed it imposed
upon the maple that had ventured as a
gifted seedling within his lawn which he
tenderly nurtured to maturity, though
the two had more than ample space for
amicable growth. In came an arborist,
down came the flawless specimen tree
in all its ornamental perfection.

Its pungently aromatic boughs
festooned the lawn, then were carted
off for a proper burial. Its large and
sturdy trunk carved to sections, its stump
and roots to ground level left to languish.
A perfectly spherical, raised flowerbed
installed over the grave. And yes, I
divided perennials and gave them to
my neighbour for his new central lawn
piece, even as I mourned the untimely
departure of an admired gentle giant.

Life Electronic

Newly aged fifteen, she is a lone and
lonely child, home in a semi-isolated
stretch of rural property, school out
for the summer months and she is
b-o-r-e-d. There is no cure for the
moody teens, one must simply forbear.
As for missed siblings, those are among
the manifold details of her young life.

Iterations and reiterations of boredom
solve nothing. Where once, in still
living memory she would have been
assigned household tasks, none now
urgently present. Time yawns at her
imaginative disposal. Social interaction
at a remote, as near as a texting cellphone,
as distant as an actual human touch.

Reaching toward and embracing
opportunity and the flexing of the curious
mind, where once an Encyclopedia, the
presence of grandparents, the ubiquity
of public libraries enabled entry to
knowledge and wisdom, now the
World Wide Web that internets us to
the information age offers her books
on order, poetry readings, geography
lessons, science facts, introductions
to art, archaeology and architecture,
studies in human development and more.

Lonely? For What, please tell.... The
whispered confidence of one standing
directly beside her. A laugh shared by
someone hosting both physical presence
and amused sensibilities. A silence and an
oppressive sense of social alienation by one
for whom extended solitude expresses a
longing for comfort in peer companionship.
Failing that, she endures, her brain steeped
in the profound mystery of life electronic.

Nature's Reckoning

There is still a faded sign remaining
reading "private" verging where
public property exists and which
should include that stretch of ravined
forested streambed the sign identifies.
An inexplicable legal glitch representing
personal entitlement where none should
be. A pillar of his community, church
elder, friends on the municipal,
law-making, law-breaking council.

The once lovingly, energetically tended
area, where he worked mightily in his
retirement years to wrest the initiative
from nature in his own untamed gardening
zeal had produced from her raw elements
through his botanical vision a veritable
hanging gardens albeit replete with
plants that ancient Babylon never saw.

He moved mountains of seasonal
detritus to be replaced laboriously by
richly amended soil, where ordered and
mannerly ornamental trees, shrubs
and perennials would lustily thrive.
He constructed an elaborate series of
stairs and terraces, arbors and gazebos,
fountains and ponds where swam exotic
gold and silver fish from the East.

Where sun filtered through the forest
canopy he planted perennials that thrived
in semi-shade, and where shade prevailed
he thoughtfully planted shade-loving plants.
He surveyed his work and proclaimed it
good, then posted additional "private"
and "keep out" warning signs lest anyone
blunder unaware, upon his treasures.

He feasted his eyes and his gloating pride
upon his success, his Shangri-la, inviting
glossy gardening journals to come along
at his behest to photograph and feature
his very private, exclusive, most exceptional
Paradise. Viewers were charmed, enthralled
and outraged at his assumption of the private
upon the public space and much heated
discussion ensued, two camps emerging,
those who deplored his hubris and those
who staunchly defended his green genius.

All moot, now. Nature has reclaimed her
possession. Gone the plethora of urns and
overflowing terra-cotta pots brimful of form,
texture and colourful blooms. Gone the leisure
chairs, lounges and tea tables. The stream now
runs unimpeded - gone the pools and the
exotic fish. Squirrels now run freely, no longer
trapped and excluded. Time has swept him into
history and his gardens to nature's reckoning.

Sanctuary (1)

The trees bare as straw brooms
bleed bright yellow blazes,
sharp counterpoint on grey beech;
dark needles of conifers
comb the winter air
shoved by a bitter wind.
The snow is loosely sifted
glaringly bright under the winter sun
as we cross-tuft a pattern
striding snowshoed. The
silence echoes as we whisper
in the cathedral stillness of the wood
watch two deer panic
red rumps flicking white flags
dark droppings steaming in the snow.
They're still spooked by vague
ghosts of hunting incursions
in this game sanctuary.

(We'd watched helplessly
as scaups frantically
beat the air
rising from a quiet autumn lake
air thick with shot. Later
looked down from protected heights
as a deer veed another lake
trying to escape the hunters
finally standing
frozen in fear
on the cusp of the lake
a perfect target.)

They're forgetful in the summer,
memory of terror dimmed
let us watch them browsing.
Yet it was just last summer
we discovered this same forest pathway
plush with fawn-coloured hair
yawning with the chalk-white
skull of an unwary deer.

Candid Camera

Oh, so comfortably I sit on a
cushioned glider, tiny companion
dog asleep beside me, as a robin
sings brilliantly in the garden below
and rain pelts the canopy sheltering
us. We could abandon our outdoor
leisure perch but no need,
as we're kept dry and secure.

This is our outdoor space as
extension of our indoor haven
from the vicissitudes of the elements.
From our shared shelter can be
observed the bright orange sprays
of blooming honeysuckle, the
manifold-petalled, exquisitely
frangranced peonies and the
deep-pink roses bursting pride.

The steady sound of the rain
under the aluminum-coloured
aquarium that has become the sky
a comforting murmur nurturing
the gardens below, filling the
bird-bath that will delight the
robins anticipating the festive
offerings emerging from the
creature-drenched garden soil.

Life as Mystery

Like a primeval vision, mist lifts hazily
from the turgidly swollen water rushing along the
forested ravine. The mist aspires toward the sky,
as though to return to the darkly enveloping clouds
still lowering above, though a scant half-hour
before they had bathed the landscape in torrents
of rain, still gathering on hillsides and spilling
into the ravine below, freshly endowing the mud-roiling
creek, its surface surfeit with the storm's detritus.

The dark, outspread wings of crows crest on the
wet wind, their calls absorbed into the moist air.
Tree foliage, slick-bright in shades of living greens,
steadily drip excess. The fruit of the hazelnut shrubs
increasing their volume, well irrigated by nature's
generosity. A hare leaps into the underbrush, stops,
alert suddenly to instinct's ancient awareness
and the imperative invested in survival.

It is from a distance, although not remotely,
that the echo and re-echo of an owl reverberates
and repeats urgently, and the drenched but brilliant
landscape sinks into its mysterious thrum of life
and cessation, all assuming myriad forms
in the endless, purposeful pursuit whereby
each life form, each exceptional organism,
finds its hallowed place, and strives to retain it.

Tangled Conceit

The gentle morning has been
transformed by the cunning
stealth of storm clouds conspiring
to occlude the sweet azure sky
with angrily bruised clouds anxious
to relieve themselves of their burden
of moisture, releasing a smothering
waterfall on the unsuspecting
landscape shuddering below.

Oddly variant, the day closed in on
itself. Having just attained to the
lightness of dawn, the sky succumbed
to the darkened aspect of dusk. A
rumble of ill-natured discontent
rent the atmosphere and the gardens,
startled from their placid display of
charmed form and brash colour in
defiance of the intrusive elements,
sparked their pride in a tangled conceit.

Well Met

Its adorable face masked like
that of a raccoon, its softly
alert eyes regarding me with
curiosity, the ferret sniffs my
extended palm, yawns, revealing
tiny teeth perfectly geared to
ripping and tearing; more than
capable of defending itself from
other carnivores; and a pink,
very devilishly-pink tongue.

Is this trust or merely the
ennui of timeless boredom?

The tall bearded man holding
the soft-furred animal and its leash
bends to deposit it on the woodland
trail, exhorting Winston to exercise
himself and not merely breathe
the freshly scrubbed air. My
similarly leashed dog, a toy breed
yet giant in comparison, snarls,
and the ferret fearlessly
responds, hissing its warning.

The Time-Vested Garden

The investment, as of all pursuits,
that have, along with their intrinsic
value, returns far outstripping the
original vestment of time, energy
and devoted attention in a world whose
manifold pursuits are required for
undeniably practical purposes; this
growing pursuit relates to life-quality.

Time demands, leading to a scarcity
of that demanding and elusive element
persuades many to involve themselves
elsewhere. Yet doing so denies the
instructive urge recalling an indistinct
genetic memory of land husbandry
once so vital to human existence.

For us, now, survival no longer the
issue, gratified satisfaction, aesthetic
pleasure and lending ourselves to an
apprenticeship to nature, as fervent
accomplices to the verdant fecundity
of the growing season, feeds a passion.

Feeling the sun's warmth on the
firmness of a fragrant tomato ripe for
the table, the pungent green parsley and
sweetness of basil, piquant thyme and chives
garnishing one's food. Bowers of roses
blooming, a unified paean to the sun.

Peonies and Canterbury bells, lilies
and lilacs, their sublime and graceful
forms and rainbow presence, their divine
fragrance pervading the atmosphere,
bringing bees and butterflies, dragonflies
and songbirds to share in the plenty of
nature's bidding and our desire.

Riley

With cutting edge scissors
firmly in hand and the object
of my unwilling attention
cowering submissively before me,
I begin to snip a trajectory of
recognition upon the mass of
soft apricot curls that have
succeeded in masking those
pleading eyes requesting
kindly cease and desist.

He would far prefer, thank
you very much, to sport the
undisciplined mass of hair
that transforms him into a
saucily rotund mop, while I
prefer the clipped visage of
a dog as a dog is a dog.

Away the tangle, begone the
knots. Done with the delicate
fibres of hair to which woody
detritus, withered leaves and
nasty burrs so fondly cling.
What emerges is a dour, albeit
sweet-faced, docile dawg.

The day yawns clear and blue with
but a few fluffs of cloud trickling
the distant sky, inviting us to wander
trails in a forest settled most
comfortably into a late spring
that truly was late arriving.

Finally, the creek which had
been compelled by never-ceasing
cold rains to industriously
drive fallen detritus from winter
excess and the fall preceding
has paused to a turbid trickle.

Water striders frantically skate
its surface, caddisfly larvae conceal
themselves in its clay-wet banks
within their purloined homes, and
sun-streaked slashes of iridescent
blues, greens, reds and gold dragonflies
play arabesques on the gliding breeze.

At the trail, blooming bedding grasses
send their aromatic pear essence
into the wind. Among the fleabane
the daisies and the clambering cowvetch,
cinquefoil's pale yellow five-petalled
flowers gently prevail. Goldfinches
seek one another out within the cool,
green haven of surrounding hemlock.

My Garden Conceit

We've an especial horde of private
treasure in urns of Renaissance design
and heft, pots of Mediterranean origins
contrived of terra-cotta, glazed and not,
stone impervious to weather and ageing
gracefully, moss-impregnated and
haughtily-stately; all devoted
to our consuming garden deceit.

Nature never did design such homes
for her delectably lovely flowers whose
origins, shapes, textures and colours
fixate the senses with their exotic appeal,
their sensuous gracefulness and aromatic
fragrances bringing the insect world
to worship at their mysteriously nectared
and irresistibly-pollinated interiors.

Those miniature gardens, whose
tenants we so hugely admire represent
the cosmopolitan aristocracy whose
migration from the Himalaya to
broaden their horizons and our
gardening prospects captivate and
enthrall us with their heady beauty.

In those minuscule gardens are
creative choices of foliage and flowers
allowing us the freedom of manipulating
conceitedly what nature has obligingly
provided in our self-centric devotion to
surpass in fortuitous design what she
has nonchalantly produced. The result,
a satisfied sigh of providence as the
garden containers bloom and thrive
their sumptuous entrance to summer.

Reflection

We fondle our past
with fingers
of fond memory
echoing regret
at swift passing.

You recall me
soft and round
waiting and eager
that element of danger
of quick discovery
and swift withdrawal
but always there
waiting

And you
see in me still
that other
The one who
lingers back there
dark-haired and nubile
and you smile.

Here I am, Love
don't you see me?
This pale reflection
refracting the
purity of youth
is only time
wrinkling the present.

"They're Here!"

They are rivals, competing
daily for the same edible treats,
doled courtesy of those who
appreciate all such creatures of
the woods. Swift, cleverly adaptive
they adjust with alacrity to
maximize providential gifts.

One a ground species, the
other aerial, both firmly devoted
to the acquisition of ground nuts,
the feathered fully as capable
as the furred of dislodging the
nutmeats from their firm
inedible receptacles.

The signal is expressed the
moment we enter the trailhead
to the wooded ravine. Loud and
clear, the dark sentry's declaration
"they're here!" followed by a
curiously silent and determined
retinue appearing in the trees above,
to stalk our daily disbursements.

The contest is then afoot, and
on wing, as the spoils, tree by tree,
are retrieved and possessed, for to
the swift and the fearless go the spoils.
There is no belligerence, grievance
or aggravated assault in evidence,
merely a lively game to succeed.

The natural surroundings, of nature's
elements, the timeless pursuit of
sustenance and serendipity may
provide the stage for creatures to
develop a means of conflict resolution
that has strangely and inexcusably
evaded the consciousness of humankind.

The Cardinal's Trill

The wide, blue lid of the
world blazes with luminous
light and energy-sapping heat
over a languid landscape
barely cooled by an uncommitted
breeze ruffling the dark green
canopy of the forest below.

Shafts of brilliant sun illuminate
Nature's creative design in the
embroidered wings of a Swallowtail,
the exquisitely delicate body
of a damselfly, glinting watery
gold on the ripples of a stream
gliding casually within the ravine.

The air is still redolent with the
fragrance of honeysuckle past their
prime. Now canes of blackberry are
sumptuous with blossoms and the
showy pink flowers of thimbleberries.
There is a promiscuous display of bright
buttercups in the meadow reflecting
the sun, among the orange hawkweed.

The divine trill of a cardinal bells
the landscape with its unparalleled
melody of sublime provenance which
the Red Priest Vivaldi must have
emulated for the stringed instruments
of his beloved orphans. The unrestrained
mocking taunt of a woodpecker responds.

My Self

I am many where
I would be one
fearing forced explication
of the face
turned away from mine
so I become malleable
as clay
responding to others' biases
tamping down
my inside self
forcing up those double images
parroting words
to evoke pleasant acceptance
prevent awkwardness
yet disliking this stranger
making her uncomfortable
sojourn
nestling among my
sinews my bones
where that one and that one
is all things
to all men
and that too-quiet
lonely voice calls out
yet unheard
hear me!
let me out ...
. . . . . I cannot.

Agitating Discontent

Have I then, in my dotage,
missed something truly fundamental
in the zeitgeist of teen angst and
generational polarization? Is morose
denial and belligerent waywardness
of social mores truly the current
badge of honour among the young,
intransigently suffering, never seen
in an earlier agrarian society?

The pathology and delusion appears
to have become a universal affliction,
somehow infecting the societally empowered
the spoiled generation of the privileged,
anon. Their voraciously grim and gloomy
dissatisfaction and estrangements
volatile and threateningly explosive.

In discarding the yoke of direction
and expectation they have imputed to
intolerable interference of their sovereignty
of self, denying the dictates of adults
urging them to conform to values whose
worth they dispute, they have themselves
evolved through a process of militant
rejection and obstinate demands, the
world's new class of tyrants.

The Eye of the Needle

The authentic acuity of my vision
was never in doubt, for in our
childhood together, both fourteen,
it was he who wore corrective lenses,
never me, and I was tasked to parse
dim distant legends with the
accuracy of an eagle's sight.

Fully sixty years later, his vision
remains as it once was, and I am
now dependent on his balming patience
to enable me to perform the rudest
sewing tasks, from a hand that could
once guide a needle to execute the
most delicately exquisite of
beadwork and embroidery.

Try as I may, with angle and
intent, repeated stabs and altered
direction, the eye of the needle
remains as elusive as my once
unerring eyesight. And I am time
and again prevailed upon by him
to render thread and needle to
his smiling, confident marriage
cojoining the needle and thread.

Yet To Be Advised

There are three very young children
whose impression of life and family
is yet intact. Two little girls, resembling
their mother, a brother who looks just
like his father, doted upon and cherished
as their parents had once, signing their
marriage compact, agreed they loved
and would cherish one another unto
the near eternity of the future.

The neighbourhood is abuzz, not
with rumour, but speculation, softly
as though murmuring words of personal
regret for yet another human tragedy.
Those who infer the sad details share them,
but they are wrong; it is he, the devoted
husband and committed father, who has left.

Family assets to be sundered and
re-distributed, the house has been speedily
sold, the profit somewhat narrower than
anticipated, for those who once loved, now
loathe and full separation must be achieved.
The oblivious children will be yet advised.

To The Swift

Swaths of sun-insouciant buttercups
proudly bearing their gold standards,
and squadrons of Dragonflies brilliantly
bouncing sunrays off green, amber, blue
and red, as they magically hover the
summer-enchanted landscape.

The faint rattle of a grackle juxtaposed
with the clarion-clear notes of robins' joyous
calls. In this atmosphere of seasonal pleasures
boasting nature's diversities there is
temperance and glory to behold aplenty.

There, jewelweed beginning its
journey to summer's bloom, and
there, alights a splendid yellow Admiral
to briefly rest its magnificent wings.

The crows, silently watchful, contest
the squirrels anxiously alert; rivals for
access to nuts doled daily within the
precincts of the vast urban wood.

A chipmunk, cleverly aware,
bypasses both, industriously
filling his capacious little pouch:
to the swift go the spoils.

To Wile And Beguile

Just a spare moment - the urge
becomes irresistible; how to set it
aside? Simply not possible. The
garden sits innocent of guile, simply
there, presenting itself. It is my
critical eye that observes all those
little tasks that beg the attentive,
perfectionist (me?) gardener's
task-responsive bustle.

To be done: shrub trimming, tree
cut-backs, perennial divisions,
insecticide concocting-and-spraying,
dead-heading, weed-pulling, coddling
and watering; staking and replacing.
Only then, when all is in impeccable
order, every plant in its seasonal session
of bloom and display, can the exacting
gardener rest her attentiveness to
excruciating, minuscule detail.

On the other hand, perhaps not,
for none of those tasks has a defined
beginning or an end but for the imposed
interregnum of winter cessation: It is
well to remember that the garden we
champion strives to emulate nature
not the self-obsessed nature of the
self-flagellating gardener.

The gardener who, to assure the pleasure
of aiding, not compelling, encouraging,
not demanding, will inevitably discover
the sweet solution to compulsion.
The garden's rewards in sumptuous
exuberant loveliness, its ultimate award.

Scene Stealer

The hot, steamy day of clear skies
and fierce sun streaming the landscape
has vanished. Darkness has descended,
the sky obscured by brutish, threatening skies,
unleashing torrents of rain. The arrival of
thunderous applause at this scene-stealer,
the darkness lit by sharp daggers of light
and more thunderous appeals for clouds
to release hail upon the hapless gardens.

We are in the eye of the storm, a dense
black eye emitting of its own monumental
impulses, sullen and angry as the morose
elements capture the world in a fierce
embrace of heat, humidity, sturm und drang.
The drama concedes of no surcease until
its miserable will is wilfully done.

The swaying trees, shifting through the
message of the power elite, the cowering,
fearful caught out under the dense cloak of
nature's fury, quiver under the assault
of her ferocious symmetry. Nature and her
volatile elements sulk and abrade the anxious
nerves of her creatures for awhile, then bored
with their own powerful conceits, the darkness,
the thunder and lightning, the volumes of rain
and frozen spittle, the wind and the sound
shuffle off centre stage, exeunt right.

Under The Sun's Glare

A truly amiable, good-natured
day has transpired, the sky openly
conspiring with the sun to admit
no more than gentle skeins of
lacy-white clouds brief intermission
of the radiant orb. Heat permeates
and sizzles the atmosphere, as
a lazy breeze rattles the forest leaves.

There is the rustle of robins
peering in vain along forest trails,
veering from one verge to another,
choosing to run, not fly, until resigned,
they flap to tree branches above and
sweetly express anticipation of heat-
relieving showers to reveal for their
delectation creatures of the soil.

Yellow admirals in search of
elusive partners roam the airspace,
dreaming of elemental binary relations,
however brief and brilliantly obsessive
the instinct of survival and pleasure
endowing all nature's organisms. Bees
and dragonflies zip and freestyle their
own existential and brief priorities.

Sunny buttercups, milkweed, Solomon's
seal and pink-perfect fleabane stipple
the landscape's understory in a tangle
of cowvetch and ferns, under flowering
dogwood and honeysuckle. There for a
quick study in ephemeral beauty, the
miniature perfection of blue-eyed grass,
already withering under the sun's glare.

Garden Gifts

The garden exquisitely times its surprises
in a stage-managed expertise no less
astonishing for its seasonal predictability.
The drab but graceful spirea suddenly
presents as an immaculately-worked
bridal veil, its sweeping branches swooning
with the sweet weight of its multitudinous
blossoms of brief perfection. The rose bushes
and climbing roses, rhododendrons and
clematis vines, have thrust into succession
their plump and shapely buds with rising
expectations of days to come in their proudly
exuberant displays of sun-kissed, dew-flushed
blossoms beloved of bees and hummingbirds.

The blossoming lilacs and lilies-of-the-valley
perfume the garden with the gorgeous fragrance
of all earthly delights. The showiest, most
petal-and-colour-delightful of all garden treasures
erupt in a blaze of gentrified glory, as the
perfect, rounded and layered buds of tree peonies
burst open in a display of form, layered
texture and breathless loveliness few other
garden treasures can contest; the ultimate
gift of perfection from nature's storehouse
and an obedient garden, to its privileged host.

Elemental

The elemental forces of nature
in their various manifestations
from fearfully dread to
divinely inspired present for us
daily monumental challenges and
equally impressive joys. Several
miles distance and less can separate
a wickedly deadly windstorm whose
vortex sweeps clean in its
destructive force, and a gentle breeze,
lifting the wings of butterflies.
It becomes chance and fortune
much more than circumstance
that happens to blow an ill wind
or a teasing one. Just as well we
live our lives unaware that
we take our diurnal chances.

Landscape Perfection

There are those days, and they are
ample, and amply gratifying, when
the elements relent sufficiently to call
an armistice in incessant raging winds
and fierce rainstorms, to produce days of
fulsome sun, drying breezes and the
reassurance that nature shares
pleasantries at least as frequently
as she enacts scenes of distress.

This is one of those days, when a
furiously angry sky has been replaced
by the kindness of baby-blue and whipped
cream. The breeze merely riffles newly-
greened foliage. Dragonflies whip about
nipping airborne pests, wings flickering,
bodies bejewelled in iridescent reds, greens,
blues and golds. The forest understory is
beaming with blooming dogwood, pink
and white honeysuckle and hawthorn.

Down in the ravine, the call of a wild
turkey anomalously negotiating
unfamiliar territory. A hawk, circling
above, whistles, riding the tumbling wind,
its predator's eye fastened on the accelerated
exit of its alerted prey. The bright carmine
of a cardinal, then another, flashes from
tree to tree, their trills as priceless as the
overwhelming fragrance drifting
the landscape toward perfection.

Inchworm

He feels unfairly put-upon, that
much is abundantly clear. Not for
him, the frenzied antics of his canine
peers attempting to communicate
their urgent desire to gambol about
free and careless in the urban woods.
His wish is to forever loll in the sun,
recumbent and satiated with the
sloth of comfortable stillness.

Grudgingly, helplessly, he permits
the ritual of collar and harness,
leash attached, to set out on his daily,
oh so unappreciated stroll in the woods.
Once upon a time that was a vigorous
jaunt; now, no amount of tugs on the
leash, verbal urgings at first quietly,
hopeful, mounting to exasperated orders
impels him to pick up his pace.

His human companion tells him
he'll never get anywhere at that rate,
and despairs she will not, either. She
tells him he has begun to behave like a
tired old tubby, but he is unmoved -
literally. You're only twelve, she pleads;
look at your sister go! She's almost nineteen
... he cares not a whit. For if he thinks
of himself at all, it is as an inchworm.