My friend Barb Edler and I both made spooky posts Saturday. Barb’s post was about the possibility of aliens returning after their suspected driveway visit when her oldest son was a baby. Mine was about loss of sleep because of messages in a sound machine (probably possessed by evil spirits, because its twin is working fine).
All of this gnawed on my brain last night when the whatifs* started spinning on the midnight merry-go-round of my mind…..what if a tree falls on the campsite and crushes us right here in the camper? What if somebody up the hill forgot to chock their tires and their camper slides down the hill in the middle of the night and lands on us? What if a rogue tornado pops up and slings us all the way to Alabama? What if aliens invade Pine Mountain?
Aliens.
And then that whatif gobbled and swallowed my whole frontal lobe with a poem.
What Do I Do?
what do I do
if aliens
land here
and
the whole
campground
nudges me
forward
to greet
the spaceship,
elects
me their
spokesperson
like some
Hunger Games
tribute?
what do I do
when the ramp
door lowers
to the ground
smoke spilling
out against
the backlit
silhouettes
of aliens
the
expressionless
kind
with big heads
huge eyes
and knobby
knees?
what do I do
when they
confront me
and stop
toe to toe
face to face
expecting a
word or a
welcome or a
warning?
what do I do
when I start
wondering
if this is
what the
Indian
Removal
Act felt like
for those
pushed off
their own
planet?
what do I do
when it looks
like they
start
speculating
about
the speed
of all
our little
earth-anchored
sewer-hosed
spaceships
with lights
over the
doors?
what do I do
when I feel
like the fly
before the
spider says
step into
my parlor?
what do I do?
I do
what I do
best
I invite them
into my teardrop
to read
poetry
and sip
tea
*with a nod to Shel Silverstein for the whatifs in his ear
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