Light Verse

A DIFFERENT SORT OF TREE

You can say yes, or you can say no;
speak into the phone, clearly and slow.
Our menu has changed, choices are new;
please listen carefully all the way through.

Enter your number and press the pound key,
simple and easy as you can see.
Your call is important, there'll be a short wait,
really important, just a short wait.

I don't understand. Kindly repeat.
Password invalid. Delete.
Delete.




LACE CALLS TO LACE

A lacewing moth ate the tablecloth
Great Grandma sewed so long ago.
She tatted it with tiny thread
And saved it for the day she wed,
Her lace, her hopes in one wood chest
That came along when they moved West.

My mother's mother had it then
To take to a new home again,
Just down the road a ways, not far,
A short trip in their brand new car.
It graced the dinners Grandma placed
Upon its convoluted lace.

Mom brought it home when Gran was gone 
No longer sparkling white, but fawn.
In our small home there was no space,
No dining room for fancy lace.
Once cleaned and pressed, it took a rest
In Great Gran's battered wooden chest. 

But lurking in the chest unseen,
A mothly brood with hunger keen
Devoured the swirls and loops and curls
Created by that old time girl.
Of all her work there was no trace,
No remnant left of Great Gran's lace.

What moths erased can be replaced.
The work's begun to make new lace,
Much smaller than a tablecloth,
But still a stunning bit of froth,
A drapey stole that I shall wear
Then pass along to all my heirs.




UNDER THE FLIGHTPATH

Jet planes proclaim, "I'm leaving now,"
as if we didn't know.
Their lusty roars rattle the doors
of residents below.


© R.M. Rousseau