Poem of the Week
September 20, 2004
The arrows of the Navajos on me had no avail,
Unless, perchance, they hit me on my nosetip or my
tail,
Because the sun and moon at birth had armed me with
a spell,
Which hardly any Navajos could fathom very well.
I could go on and tell you tales to make your blood
run cold,
Of swimming feats, enchanted elks and strawberries
and gold,
But this I'll add : Back in the days when mother was
Moon-Queen ;
My pelt, like the good toahafs bush, was very pretty
green ;
But then I heard a bluebird sing about a magic lake,
In which all dusty beasts could four successive plunges
take,
Then step upon the bank and chant a mystic phrase or
two,
And like himself, turn into brilliant Maeterlinckian
blue.
So I dived in and followed the directions of the bird,
And came out like the prairie sky---conceit was not the
word ;
Then tripped and rolled into the dust of a young gopher
town,
And ever since that day I've been a ragged yellow-
brown.
--Thomas Hornsby Ferril
Lines 37 - End. Reprinted from Anthology of Newspaper Verse for 1921.
Edited by Franklyn Pierre Davis, Enid, Oklahoma, MCMXXII. Please click:
Lines 1-36
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