(7) STANDING UP ALL FINE AND STRAIGHT, HE FACED ME LIKE A HERO.

I accidentally published this a week early, but now you have time to copy, paste, and mail it to loved ones. The poet was my mom, Ernestine Cobern Beyer. How I miss her merry presence in my life! bbm     

THE STRANGER  

 As I was walking through a wood, one cool September day

I chanced to see a stranger standing jaunty, in my way.

There wasn't much about him to remark about, I guess—

Unless it might be possibly the matter of his dress.

I couldn't help from noticing the jacket he had on,

For glory be! 'Twas greener than McGillicuddy's lawn!

Except for that, there wasn't much to stretch a pair of eyes—

Unless I should be mentioning the matter of his size!

It's really rather seldom you'll be meeting on your walks,

A bit of man who measures seven inches in his socks.

I looked at him and looked at him and kinda thought it over,

While he stared back, his little head just level with the clover.

"You're not a native of the town!" I presently decided.

"No, that I'm not!" the little man quite cheerfully confided.

"Well then," I went on thoughtful-like, as sharp I looked him through,

"I'm thinking you're a stranger, here."  Said he: "I think so, too!"

     Artist Grace Lawrence  (from Poetry with a Purpose)

Said I: "Could be that you're a man who's kinda shrunk a little!"

"It could be now!" he answered me, a trifle noncommittal.

Then, standing up all fine and straight, he faced me like a hero,

(The brash of him whose size was little more than two times zero!)

And sweeping off his tiny cap, he said with quite a bow

"Good luck to you, long life to you—and I'll be leaving now!"

With that, the little fellow went.  'Twas queer, I do declare!

He didn't walk away from me.  He simply wasn't there!

Well, as I wandered homeward with the sunlight in my eyes,

I talked it over with myself.  (Myself is wondrous wise!)

Said I: "He was a pipe dream! Aye! He surely was the type!"

"Fiddlesticks!" Myself replied. "You've never owned a pipe!"

And thinkin' of the matter, very sober in the dawn,

The both of us decided I had met a leprechaun!

                                    Artist Leo Harrington