Hypothetical

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Maybe let's say you're scheduled for a 3:30 am wake-up call so that you can make the two hour drive to having major surgery. Let's say you're left with a few hours of time to pause and reflect and try to find the handle on the situation. No one would blame you for having a little bit of a freak-out. Maybe you'd just retreat to your bedroom and stare at the ceiling. Or maybe you would compete in your school forensics championships.

While others plan to go trudging onto the bare stage with a lined sheet of paper in-hand, head down and reading to the floor, maybe you would just throw caution to the wind and leave your cheat sheet at home.



It's an unlikely scenario, but let's just say that's what you do. After the parade of parental well-wishers are done patting your arm and giving you their best We'll Be Thinking Of You Tomorrow ... You Know ... When You Go ... Uhhhmmm ... To Get The Uhhhh ... YOU'RE GONNA BE FINE speech, maybe your name is announced and you stride on stage alone and begin:

I am weary of the Garden, Said the Rose;
For the winter winds are sighing,
All my playmates round me dying,
And my leaves will soon be lying 'Neath the snows.

But I hear my Mistress coming, Said the Rose;
She will take me to her chamber,
Where the honeysuckles clamber,
And I'll bloom there all December Spite the snows.

Sweeter fell her lily finger Than the bee!
Ah, how feebly I resisted, Smoothed my thorns, and e'en assisted
As all blushing I was twisted Off my tree.
And she fixed me in her bosom Like a star;
And I flashed there all the morning,
Jasmin, honeysuckle scorning
Parasites forever fawning That they are ...

...
...
...

Now let's say you're doing smashingly well up to this point. Then it happens; a bad case of Blank Brain. The next stanza is nowhere to be found. Everybody is looking at you and the auditorium has fallen absolutely silent. Many of the onlookers are betting you're about to break down in tears and run off stage. But instead, let's say you stand there on that stage, absolutely calm. During the extended pause, anothor enormous ice shelf in the Antarctic breaks loose and tumbles into the icy water and the FDIC takes two more banks into receivership. Then ... ahh yes, there it is. You simply continue:


And when evening came she set me In a vase
All of rare and radiant metal,
And I felt her red lips settle
On my leaves til each proud petal
Touched her face.

And I shone about her slumbers Like a light
And, I said, instead of weeping,
In the garden vigil keeping,
Here I'll watch my Mistress sleeping Every night.

But when morning with its sunbeams Softly shone,
In the mirror where she braided
Her brown hair I saw how jaded,
Old and colorless and faded, I had grown.

Not a drop of dew was on me, Never one;
From my leaves no odors started,
All my perfume had departed,
I lay pale and broken-hearted In the sun.

Still I said, her smile is better Than the rain;
Though my fragrance may forsake me,
To her bosom she will take me,
And with crimson kisses make me Young again.

So she took me . . . gazed a second . . . Half a sigh . . .
Then, alas, can hearts so harden?
Without ever asking pardon,
Threw me back into the garden, There to die.

How the jealous garden gloried In my fall!
How the honeysuckle chid me,
How the sneering jasmins bid me
Light the long gray grass that hid me Like a pall.

There I lay beneath her window In a swoon,
Till the earthworm o'er me trailing
Woke me just at twilight's failing,
As the whip-poor-will was wailing To the moon

But I hear the storm-winds stirring In their lair;
And I know they soon will lift me
In their giant arms and sift me
Into ashes as they drift me Through the air.

So I pray them in their mercy Just to take
From my heart of hearts, or near it,
The last living leaf, and bear it To her feet,
and bid her wear it For my sake.


When it's all over, let's say you win first prize in the poetry division. Why not? We're just making this up to pass the time and try not to panic. Right?

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