Imagine my delight as I signed onto Google at 2:00 a.m. this morning (what? doesn't everyone???) and discovered that today was the Big Man's Birthday! The man whose every word can move me like no other. . . whose lyricism and cadence is forever etched upon my lips . . . whose sense of silliness and whimsy will forever stay in my heart. . .
And so, without further ado, I've decided to write a poem and dedicate it to Theodore Geisel, who - were he still alive - would have been a 105-years-young today!
(I'll let you know what I title it after I write it. . . for you can't predict these sorts of things in advance, you know. . . )
Quite a bit west of good old Weehauken,
and twenty miles due north of Middle Pennsauken,
there lived a nice lady with daughters of three,
who fretted and worried to quite a degree.
and twenty miles due north of Middle Pennsauken,
there lived a nice lady with daughters of three,
who fretted and worried to quite a degree.
But there's a good reason she worried a lot,
for, truthful, her daughters most surely were not!
Their lies would unfurl when asked for the truth,
but their mom had been blessed with gifts of a sleuth.
Now one day, this Spinmom who had much to do,
found in her car, one lone, errant shoe.
A sneaker - in shades of black, brown and tan,
residing alone in her old minivan.
The trouble, you see, with just finding one shoe
came not from the "what" but more from the "who?"
For who could have left a size Ten Extra-Wide,
when only three daughters traveled inside?
It wasn't her husband's - oh no, not at all -
for it wasn't his taste and was slightly too small.
One shoe, on its own, may not seem so bizarre,
But who - tell me who - had been in her car???
She queried her daughters - down to the last one,
and got the same answer - the sneaker was shunned!
That shoe? they all cried in a snooferlous way,
I surely don't know and I won't likely say!
Why would you care for a shoe left behind?
A shoe brown and tan in a man's extra wide????
Let's face it, dear mother, you'll never find out,
just why that old shoe began hanging about!
But our mother, you know, was a crafty old lass;
she thought up a scheme and she went to work fast.
She took that old sneaker and without a quick doubt,
let the dog sniff both around and about.
When later that day a chap came to the door,
to visit a daughter he hadn't before,
the dog greeted him with hardly a whiff,
and knew what to do upon the first sniff . . .
That dog, our good friends, went and got that old shoe,
and dropped it before the chap in his debut!
And then our Spinmom - like a flash in the pan -
knew this was the one who had been in her van!
And so her young daughter was punished once more,
for never divulging what she had in store,
And - as for her mom - so brilliant and clever,
well, she was declared more annoying than ever!!!
btw. . . This poem - in no way, shape, or form - should be construed as complaining. It's art.