Nor Any Drop to Drink

Painting by Rick Mobbs
Nor any drop to drink

So Alex escapes
the excesses of fire
to come here
to the excesses of water.
If ya don't
cut down the trees
yer house burns down.
If ya do
cut down the trees,
mudslides turn roads
into rivers.

'Tis a pity,
a pity that we can't
coordinate things
so that the floods
put out the fires
and the fires dry up
the floods
and we all go
tripping
gaily in the glen.

I'm not totally sure,
but I think we are
the only state
that has high occupancy
canoe lanes.
(once again revealing
my inability to steal outright,
joke is from
Ron Judd's Seattle Times column)

Further caveat,
"Tis a pity" etc
is from Beethoven's
last words;
he was referring
to some wine
he was expecting,
which was to cure him
or something.

Even more caveat,
that last caveat
is from something
I read
somewhere
and is as likely
to be true
as anything else
you read.

Caveatus maximus,
"Canem"

Doug Palmer