ELETELEPHONY
INSTRUCTIONS FOUND AFTER THE FLOOD
Once there was an elephant
Who tried to use the telephantNo! no! I mean an elephone
Who tried to use the telephone(Dear me! I am not certain quite
That even now I’ve got it right.)
Let the red fox quicken the seasons.
Let the zebra buck and clatter in the cage of his skin.
Leave the glass lagoons to the blue heron,
whose eye is steady.
Let jungles whisper jaguar, whose paw is velvet.
Let the worm explore the globe, his apple.
Let the spider embroider the air.
Let tongue and belly be called reptile.
Let the bat acrobats tumble till dawn.
Let the lowly slug pearl the footpaths of Asia Minor.
Let seagulls snow down the harbors of the East.
Let the panther surround the quiet panic
she has made.
Let the hippos squat and the antelope lope.
Let the rhino bully the bush.
Let the turtle be.
Let the snail nod in the hush of her mushroom room.
Leave the deserts to the one- and the
two-humped emperors.
Let the black kite brown the morning mustard fields.
Leave afternoons for music, the bees drilling
in the lindens.
Let owls be your night lanterns, geese your compass,
skunks your caution.
Howe’er it was, he got his trunk
Engangled in the telephunk;
The more he tried to get it free,
The louder buzzed the telephee(I fear I’d better drop the song
Ofelephop and telephong!)
Laura Richards
(1850-1943)
MY SHADOW
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.
The funniest thing about him is the way
he likes to grow—
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an
India-rubber ball,
And he sometimes gets so little that there’s
none of him at all.
Robert Louis Stevenson
(1850 – 1894)
WAITING
ROOM
Yours to Keep
J. Patrick Lewis
U.S. Children’s Poet Laureate,
2011-2013 (b. 1942)
From Book of Animal Poetry,
National Geographic Society, 2012.
J. Patrick Lewis, copyright © 2012.
He hasn’t got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close beside me, he’s a coward you can see;
I’d think shame to stick to nursie as that
shadow sticks to me!
One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was
fast asleep in bed.
POEMS
IN THE
Gerald L. Schertz, M.D.
1945 – 2013
Poems in the Waiting Room (PitWR) is
sponsored by Blue Ridge Cancer Care and
dedicated to the memory of oncologist
Gerald L. Schertz, M.D. Dr. Schertz lived
and practiced medicine in the Roanoke
Valley for over 35 years, touching the lives of
countless patients with his caring demeanor.
PitWR is an initiative of The Dr. Robert L.A.
Keeley Healing Arts Program at Carilion
Clinic. To learn more about the Healing Arts
Program and how to make a gift in memory
of Dr. Schertz, contact the Carilion Clinic
Foundation at 540-224-5398 or [email protected].
Volume 2, Issue 1
A WISE OLD OWL
A BIRD CAME DOWN THE WALK
MAKE THE EARTH YOUR COMPANION
A wise old owl sat in an oak,
The more he heard, the less he spoke;
The less he spoke, the more he heard.
Why aren’t we all like that wise old bird?
A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.
Anonymous
And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.
Make the Earth your companion.
Walk lightly on it, as other creatures do.
Let the sky paint her beauty—she is always
watching over you.
Learn from the sea how to face harsh forces.
Let the river remind you that everything will pass.
Let the lake instruct you in stillness.
Let the spring reveal the Earth at its rebirth.
Let the mountain teach you grandeur.
Let the woodland be your house of peace.
Let the rainforest be your house of hope.
Meet the wetland on twilight ground.
Leave some small piece of grassland for a red kite
on a windy day.
Let the soil embrace the seeds that grace the sod.
Let the icecaps glisten their crystal majesty.
Let the desert whisper hush to eternity.
Let the town weave a small basket of togetherness.
Let nature become second nature, too.
Make the Earth your companion.
Walk lightly on it, as other creatures do.
from AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
William Blake
(1757-1827)
He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head
WHO HAS SEEN THE WIND?
Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home
Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you.
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.
Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, plashless, as they swim.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I.
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.
Christina G. Rossetti
(1830-1894)
Emily Dickinson
(1830 - 1886)
FOG
The fog comes
On little cat feet,
It sits looking
Over harbor and city
On silent haunches
And then moves on.
Carl Sandburg
(1878-1967)
J. Patrick Lewis
U.S. Children’s Poet Laureate,
2011-2013 (b. 1942)
From Book of Animal Poetry,
National Geographic Society, 2012.
J. Patrick Lewis, copyright © 2012.