THE PRAYING MANTIS
From whence arrived the praying mantis?
From outer space, or lost Atlantis?
I glimpse the grim, green metal mug
That masks this pseudo-saintly bug,
Orthopterous, also carnivorous,
And faintly whisper, Lord deliver us.
-Ogden Nash
When I was in the Midwest recently I enjoyed watching through big windows the rainstorms with lightning and thunder. I don’t understand this poem’s title — can anyone explain it to me? I did find the whole thing fun to read. But then, I’ve never experienced a hurricane.
A WATCHED EXAMPLE NEVER BOILS
The weather is so very mild
That some would call it warm.
Good gracious, aren’t we lucky, child?
Here comes a thunderstorm.
The sky is now indelible ink,
The branches reft asunder;
But you and I, we do not shrink;
We love the lovely thunder.
The garden is a raging sea,
The hurricane is snarling;
Oh happy you and happy me!
Isn’t the lightning darling?
Fear not the thunder, little one.
It’s weather, simply weather;
It’s friendly giants full of fun
Clapping their hands together.
I hope of lightning our supply
Will never be exhausted;
You know it’s lanterns in the sky
For angels who are losted.
We love the kindly wind and hail,
The jolly thunderbolt,
We watch in glee the fairy trail
Of ampere, watt, and volt.
Oh, than to enjoy a storm like this
There’s nothing I would rather.
Don’t dive beneath the blankets, Miss!
Or else leave room for Father.
-Ogden Nash
Ogden Nash wrote so many loving letters and poems to and about his wife Frances. Here is one typically playful poem on a favorite subject:
FOR FRANCES
Geniuses of countless nations
Have told their love for generations
Till all their memorable phrases
Are common as goldenrod or daisies.
Their girls have glimmered like the moon,
Or shimmered like a summer noon,
Stood like lily, fled like fawn,
Now like sunset, now like dawn,
Here the princess in the tower,
There the sweet forbidden flower.
Darling, when I think of you
Every aged phrase is new,
And there are moments when it seems
I’ve married one of Shakespeare’s dreams.
-Ogden Nash
Ogden Nash makes me rejoice in the English language as it presents itself to his peculiar, playful mind. I liked this galloping poem, and won’t argue with it, because that’s not what humor is for. But I will say that the line I chose for the title of my post led me from laughing to silent theologizing…
TIME MARCHES ON
You ask me, brothers, why I flinch.
Well, I will tell you, inch by inch.
Is it not proper cause for fright
That what is day will soon be night?
Evenings I flinch the selfsame way,
For what is night will soon be day.
At five o’clock it chills my gore
Simply to know it isn’t four.
How Sunday into Monday melts!
And every month is something else.
If Summer on the ladder lingers,
Autumn tramples upon her fingers,
Fleeing before the jostling train
Of Winter, and Spring, and Summer again.
Year swallows year and licks its lips,
Then down the gullet of next year slips.
We chip at time with clocks and watches;
We flee him in love and double scotches;
Even as we scatter in alarm
He marches with us, arm in arm;
Though while we sleep, he forward rides,
Yet when we wake, he’s at our sides.
Let men walk straight or let them err,
He never leaves them as they were.
While ladies draw their stockings on
The ladies they were are up and gone.
I pen my lines, I finish, I scan them,
I’m not the poet who began them.
Each moment Time, the lord of changers,
Stuffs our skins with ephemeral strangers.
Good heavens, how remote from me
The billion people I used to be!
Flinch with me, brothers, why not flinch,
Shirts caught in the eternal winch?
Come, let us flinch till Time stands still;
Although I do not think he will.
Hark, brothers, to the dismal proof:
The seconds spattering on the roof!
-Ogden Nash
Gladsome Lights 