Day Fifty

Today's words:

Metal detector

Eating

Haystack

Oil

Earth

Cat

An old man scoured the beach with a metal detector

As we sat nearby, eating

A picnic lunch. The dune looked like a haystack,

And I massaged sunscreen oil

Into your back. It was a wonderful day and it was Earth

Day. You stretched like a cat

And got up. "I wonder if that old cat

"Is finding anything of value with that metal detector?"

You wondered, "Why on Earth

"Do people waste time with that?" I went back to eating

Lunch, and asked you to put more oil

On my back, but you were already beyond the next haystack-

Dune. Love is the proverbial needle in a haystack,

Isn't it? And you can be so cruel, like a cat

With a mouse. Just as you won't find oil

With a metal detector,

So eating

Ice cream won't find you love on this Earth.

I've combed the Earth

Looking for that haystack

Needle, and eating

My share of ice cream. I did find a cat,

That I loved, but never tried a metal detector

To discover oil.

I had an uncle who struck oil

And became one of the richest men on Earth,

Or so it seemed. He bought himself a metal detector

Afterwards. We'd jump into the haystack

In his field. In his barn I once saw a cat

Eating

A bird. It stopped me eating

Chicken for a while. Mother gave me cod liver oil

To make up for lost protein, while the cat

Continued to rule the Earth,

Or so it thought. To find that haystack

Needle now I'd use a metal detector.

Just as we were commemorating Earth

Day, oil erupted from the haystack,

And a cat strode by waving a metal detector.