|
Monday,
Jan 1, 2002.
To
You:
How
do you do? All hail you!
Beg pardon; can't recall your name;
But,
while at present troubled with
Aphasia of the same.
Quite
reciprocal it seemed to us,
An hundred years ago,
That
just what you are doing here
We should as really know
As
if we saw you lift the lid
And search, with curious ken
This
old box, a century hid
To see what we were doing then.
How's
everything in Rockland now?
Is the railway station still
The
architectural wonder
of the south side of the Hill?
Is
the standpipe yet a standing
On Beech Hill's towering height,
Blessings,
like the clouds, down pouring
On the left hand and the right?
Have
you any public places,
Which the smokers crowd and jam,
Where
you go a son of Adam
But return of Ham?
Are
your highways lit by lightening
Through the watches of the night?
Do
the citizens think "thunder"
When the tax bills come in sight?
Have
you town meeting oyaters
Who would appal Apollos?
Whose
drafts upon eternity,
In time, cost fifty dollars?
Do
the little children, left at large,
Parade the streets at night
Long
after they should be arrayed
And laid in garments white?
And
when a man "curfew" calls,
To halt each rollicking Rollo,
Is
he called a cruel, cranky cur
Few would care to follow?
Do
you praise your candidate up
High as the flight of a lark,
Then
his to the balloting booth
And give him a black X mark?
License
now, or prohibition?
Makes a mighty diff'rence, sir,
Whether
Rockland is in Misery
Or "Missery" in her.
If
the former, Alas? for all
The rum and ruin, sin and shame;
If
the latter, Hurrah! for Shakespeare
And his "What is in a name?"
Do
you go a gunning Sundays
Just to have some killing fun?
Or
have you grown to be a city,
With nothing left to gun
Save
offices and salaries,
While giving some attention
To
elevated ways, subways
And - ways we need not mention!
Has
the "Hub's" esthetic culture
Run along the spokes to you?
Do
you now in polysylables
Tell Polly what to do?
Have
you Reeds beside your waters
That no winds of doctrine shake?
Any
Smith, in the great army,
Who'd a "Standard" bearer make?
We
shall not ask if Rockland yet
Has poets to adorn her;
We
know there's not a spot on earth
But there they have a "corner."
Good
by; beneath the heaven's blue copr,
Some day, in some happy place,
A
century hence, or less, we hope
To meet you face to face.
L.D. Perkins
|
