POETS’ CORNER: OFFBEAT FOR TURKEY DAY

20 Nov POETS’ CORNER: OFFBEAT FOR TURKEY DAY

Editor’s note: Wordwoman, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer eschews the straight line from A to B, choosing to ’round the mulberry bush with this very quirky reminder for the Thanksgiving holiday. (Rosemerry’s books of poems are carried at Between the Covers Bookstore, Telluride.)

In Praise of the Automatic Nervous System

There once was a woman
who sat on cushion
and sat and sat there all day.
And her heart, it kept thumping,
her blood it kept pumping
though never not once did she say,

“I think I should make
my heart slow its rate.”
Not once did she say, “I should breathe.”
She just sat and sat
and smiled and sat
and once or twice she sneezed.

And her bronchial muscles
and red corpuscles,
they did what they’re made to do.
Her urine secretion?
and pupil dilation?
They decreased and dilated, too.

Her salivary glands
needed no commands.
They simply reduced production.
And her bladder walls
didn’t contract at all
and her liver practiced conversion.

In short, she sat
on her cushy mat
and not once did she praise her medulla.
But it worked anyway
and never did say,
you don’t thank me much lady, do ya.

So next time you sit
for a little bit
and notice that you’re still living,
say thanks to your brain
though it never complains,
and try to be just as giving.