Poetry Break: Attend

Eric Walsh in the Matrix

Our friend Eric Walsh is returning to Canada, and we will miss his presence. Here's a poem I've written in honor of Eric, and you need to know that he's the Canadian ambassador to Korea, if you want to make sense of the poem.

Attend

For Ambassador Eric Walsh

Be glad your ears are on your head
And not some other place instead.
For were they where they're surely not,
Most likely 'deaf' would be their lot!

Oh, let us only just suppose
Your ears were stuck beneath your soles.
From that position underfoot,
You'd hear a constant put, put-put.

And how could you, ambassador,
Put best foot first through open door?
And how hear rumor on the wing?
You'd hear not any goddamned thing!

Intelligence is what I mean,
The kind of sound from which you glean
Some information guaranteed
To help your country supercede.

Thank God your ears are where they be!
They hear interdependently,
And separate the noise from sense
So safe we'll live, at less expense.

* Apologies to Jack Prelutsky

This was a fun poem to write - I just spun it off Prelutsky's poem about a misplaced nose.