Archive 10/18/09

   

"Whoo-eee!"

                                                                  

 

This Sunday, I'm another year younger,

At least for the few escaping hours of this October matinée.

Oh, if only I could suspend diswonderment indefinitely,

 

Pretend that the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and I

Spend all our days together, under one stupendous tent,

Content to engage our uncaged craving for outrageous creatures,

 

Be they trapeze fliers, tightwire artists, intrepid wheel walkers,

Caught-with-their-pants-on-fire-or-down clowns,

Six-ton elephants doing ballroom-dance moves, vaudeville stunts,

 

Shot-from-canons human daredevils, loop-de-loop poodles,

350-pound orange and white Bengal tigers baring their lethal teeth,

Even as they obey their master's cat-o'-nine-tails commands...

 

Oh, if only, in my real-life pantaloon's pratfall existence,

I could grow one day closer to youth, with each performance,

In whatever town I might find myself, in whatever state of mind,

 

I'd leap at each opportunity, believing myself to be

The luckiest Circus McGurkus ever to defy the laws of gravity,

The conventionalities of routine's one-trick-pony amateur hour.

 

But as I sit in section 103, row C, seat 17, at the Scottrade Center,

So near to the outer oval that I can almost tug on Asia's trunk,

I realize that I'm the only geezer in this timeless zone of squirts,

 

Especially when the little tyke beside me, cradled in his dad's lap,

Squeals, with uncontainable delight, "Whoo-eee! Whoo-eee!

Looky, looky, Daddy, at those really big doggies!"

 

As the decorated elephants pass by, in trunk-to-tail review,

And again, when the trainer, in the wire-mesh-enclosed center ring,

Makes his tigers rise on their hind legs, in obeisance to his whip.

 

But even now, before this magic fades into late Sunday afternoon

And the circus heads to its next scheduled destination,

I know I'm one year older and further away from "Whoo-eee!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                               

 

10/18/09

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
       

 

 
   
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