Making Friends In My Hammock

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Making Friends In My Hammock

Today I strung my hammock 

Up ‘tween two tall white oaks

In a place without much noise 

And without any other folks

And underneath my hammock

It was barren, brown, and clean

Though on either side my hammock

It was frondy, grown, and green

So I spared a passing thought to think 

That this might be a place 

For less languid locomotion

Than my slow-rocking pace 

Then I opened up my bag 

To try a cookie I’d just bought

And the abysmal cookie quality

Became my only pressing thought

By the time I’d made my peace

With the grainy chipless crunch 

I had clambered in my hammock

To get started on my lunch

I ate salad and read poems

And felt just like a scene 

From a montage in a rom com

That you watch when you’re a teen 

Needless to say 

I gave up on querying

Whether my perch

Was improper for tarrying

I didn’t think of passerby

Passing by to stare

I didn’t think of passerby 

Passing at all out there

For an hour complete 

I lay there quite stateful

Thinking life is so good

And i am so grateful

My view was of the vast blue sky

Till, in the heavens’ stead 

Came the alarming apparition

Of a round and balding head 

Now the first thing I thought

Was, he looks rather jolly

I’d think I’d still think so today

But for the following folly 

I loved how the dome of his skull 

Caught the light

But the look on his face 

Was a less seemly sight

Lying prostrate, I gazed

At the brand new intruder 

He looked at me too 

Who’s to say who was ruder 

He waited on his wife 

While to catching up she hasted 

But he was not the kind of man

To let his waiting time be wasted 

He used his time in staring

Down his well-proportioned nose

At my hammock, and particularly

My barren, wiggling toes 

Now I feel I should admit

That I was strictly centered

In the middle of the path 

That they’d rightfully entered

If I thought about it much at all

Beyond my briefest ponder 

I would have thought it best to string

My hammock over yonder

But when I’m in the woods 

With a hammock in my pack

Thinking, much at all’s, a thing

I often find I lack

Now when the lagging lass 

At last reached her lad

They both looked upon my hammock

And they looked rather mad 

Silently they grimaced

And i think they ruminated 

On how to get across the path

That my hammock had gated 

Though their options for proceeding 

Were not perhaps conventional 

I still think that they had options 

If they’d only been intentional

Aside from ducking under

Which was the course they chose

There was the long jump ‘cross the stream

It would’ve only wet their toes 

Or if they had just hugged the tree 

They could have gone around it

As long as they steered clear of 

Poison Ivy that abounded 

One way through would be to climb 

In my hammock right beside of me 

Then tumble out the other side

And wave a quick goodbye to me 

They could have said, “a hammock!

Let’s play limbo with the cords! 

Or jump over like we’re crossing

Some grand Norwegian fjords!”

That is not exactly 

How the whole charade went down

They did duck under, but they did it with 

And un-limbolike frown 

The wife just barely grazed the strap 

With the grace of dinners candlelit

The man was the one

Who really manhandled it

But in the eyes of both 

There was a gleam of great abhorring 

I could see it from my hammock

I’d been heretofore enjoying

So husband and wife both ducked below

Or at least it seems to me

Both the straps and the standards

For human decency

Now I keep on saying wife 

Which might be poor poetic praxis

For I cannot know, not truly, 

How they file on their taxes

I think, though, in this instance

My instincts do not err

I know what they say ‘bout assuming

But this assumption’s fair

For if you have the luck to meet someone

Who shares your great distaste

For happily hammock-held humans

Then there’s no time to waste

They strike me as the type to know 

When they’ve found a love so true

The kind who’d put a ring on it

Dab their eyes and say, I do

So anyway, back to the story

After that brief aside

About the sweet lifelong devotion

That their scornful scowls belied 

I tried to let it roll right off

Like water off a gosling

As they subjected me to more

Than strictly necessary jostling 

You can see that I’ve succeeded 

Let it go just as I ought

Or at least I will once I relate

This final piece of plot

For after the two

Whom I still think are married 

Came one creature more

Who was not quite so harried 

I did not at first realize 

The creature was there

For the creature was shorter

And covered in hair

But I learned soon enough

From the quaint little bump

That I felt in the flesh

At the tip of my rump 

Till this point my dear guests 

Had all loomed above me 

But now, underneath

Was a pup come to love me 

I peered out from my perch

While the dog panted back 

And our eyes shared a moment 

Of knowing contact 

Between me and the dog

We found a nice groove 

I could tell it was so 

For the dog wouldn’t move

But while we were greeting,

The man set to yanking

The dog, who I think,  

Was all of us, pranking 

But she turned up her nose

At his efforts to move her 

A rest ‘neath my hammock

Was just what behooved her

There must have been some fine scent

To keep her rooted to the spot

I’ve thought about what it could be

Thought about it quite a lot 

There were lots of sweet aromas 

Of rhododendron and spicebush 

But I like to think the fragrance

Was all thanks to my toosh

Regardless of the source

Of the all-alluring scent 

The dog plopped down beneath it

Looking, simply, spent

Now the man had not planned

On this extra adventure

So he tried with his leash

To give the dog censure

When she still didn’t move

The scene became dire

Twas unclear, of this game

Who first would tire 

The man who, till now, 

Had said not a word

Chose this precise instant

To make himself heard

Though it might seem like play,

He so kindly informed me

The dog was irate 

And really she scorned me 

It was because my hammock

Was in the path, I learned

That the dog was quite angry

The dog was concerned

The man, so mature

Put aside his own sentiments

As he related his canine’s 

Deep cultural sentience

Now we didn’t discuss

While her woes, he did list for her 

How the man came to be

Such a learned dog whisperer

She simply can’t say, 

Said the man who, with candor

Continued to translate

His dog’s own blunt slander 

Why you came to a path 

That other folks enter

Then set up your hammock

Right in the dead center 

At this point I felt 

An apology owed 

To the little wee pup 

I had so deeply woe-d

So I poked out my head 

And I gave her a pat 

And the man rolled his eyes

And folks, that was that 

At last by sheer force

She was snatched from repose 

And the dog wandered on

Still snuffling her nose

I would never have known

How the poor dog was feeling

Were the man not so kind

And verbose in revealing 

Now remember when I said

I was through with my spite? 

Perhaps then it was wrong

But now it is right

I wish the happy couple 

All the best in future treks 

In the way you might wish

All the best for your ex

For the dallying dog   

My hopes, yet more tender 

Are that never again 

Will one so offend her 

Nevermore will she meet with

A person so cruel 

That they’d swing from a tree

Where she wanted to drool. 

A person so ghastly 

They’d tie to the tree 

A hammock right where 

The dog wanted to pee.