Ode de la Lynnette

Ode de la Lynette

My friend is in Antarctica
She’s down there on the ice
She drives a big front loader
She slides around on ice

The place she’s in is icy
The place is freezing cold
The place she’s in is glacial
Did I mention how it’s cold?

My friend is there ‘til springtime
My friend really is on ice
My friend has done this once before
My friend thinks ice is nice

No, not true, she’s not a nut
She goes to get away
I asked her had she ever heard
Of running away for a day?

That’s called a day trip’s what I’ve heard
You vanish for one overnight
You take a train or a plane or a boat
And just for a day take flight

I think to disappear so far
On ice - in Antarctica
Is just a little bit extreme
Why not simply get in her car?

I find her choice to disappear
From early Fall to Spring
To drive those big front loaders
Through icy EVERYthing

Is more than slightly mad, but then --
A computer nerd to fear,
A teacher and a librarian,
That’s why I hold her dear

She is my inspiration for
The nutty stuff, the wild
To disappear? So far? So fast?
A favorite Wild-Child child

She is a close and well loved friend
She drives me to the brink
I cannot mail or talk to her
Or ask her what to think

Of this madcap runaway affair
With the other end of the Earth
Of her humor bordering lunacy
Taking all her talents and worth

She sent me purple fuzzy socks
And others of crimson red
She sent me a notebook made by hand
I’ll fill it with words unsaid

I have to wait ‘til she gets back
Sometime along late in May
Until that happens, I’ll wear my socks
Fill the notebook every day

With jottings, verse and funny things
That happen or that I think  --
I wonder if she’ll be back here
Before I’ve run out of ink? 


But if I am, I’ll pencil-write --
Hand it back to her for learning
Of what was up while she was down 
And me and old Earth were turning 

We’ll sit and talk and laugh a lot
We’ll share and exchange over wine
We’ll take a break to get some sleep
Then talk some more - we’ll be fine

She may do this as a cyclical thing
Like riding a one-wheeled bike
Just walk away from everything else
Tell Life to take a hike

Drive fork lifts and front loaders over antarctic ice
Do muscular things that tax
Be one of a close-knit down-under family
Live and learn a new set of facts

Howl at the moon, be up all night
Drive on ice in the antarctic glow
Then come back up to give me a hug
Tell me tall tales she carved out of snow