\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The Termite by Ogden Nash<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nSome primal termite knocked on wood.<\/p>\n
I do not think he understood\u2014<\/p>\n
that diet was not meant for him<\/p>\n
though it would fill the interim.<\/p>\n
In\u00a0 our resistant neighborhood<\/p>\n
some primal termite knocked on wood,<\/p>\n
and tasted it and found it good.<\/p>\n
With treated wood, no way he should<\/p>\n
indulge his starving appetite.<\/p>\n
For ten long months, bite after bite,<\/p>\n
he did, he thrived\u2014misunderstood\u2014<\/p>\n
and tasted it and found it good.<\/p>\n
And that is why your cousin May<\/p>\n
was eating chocolate, curds and whey,<\/p>\n
while Uncle George, and neighbors\u2014all\u2014<\/p>\n
danced to a jig and down the hall.<\/p>\n
But she kept eating, would not weigh,<\/p>\n
and that is why your cousin May<\/p>\n
fell through the parlor floor today.<\/p>\n
She hurt her back and had her say,<\/p>\n
but termites chomped in some new place.<\/p>\n
May could not find them\u2014not a trace.<\/p>\n
She moved her chair to wood parquet\u2014<\/p>\n
fell through the parlor floor today.<\/p>\n
**<\/p>\n
\u00a0Copyright.\u00a0<\/strong>Jacqueline Williams. All Rights Reserved. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nFirst Place (Humor), League of Minnesota, 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n**<\/p>\n
More about Jacqueline Williams:<\/strong><\/p>\nJacqueline Williams is a retired educator and active writer, mostly poetry, from Mesa, AZ. With her husband and three young boys, she spent five years in Uganda, East Africa. She travelled through Greece, England, Italy, Spain, the Balearic Islands, France, Austria, and Germany. Before returning to the U.S., she climbed the \u201cMountains of the Moon, finally looking down on the Congo from above the Speke Glacier.<\/strong><\/p>\nJacqueline \u00a0completed her Masters in Special Education at Arizona State University; \u00a0taught at San Carlos Reservation Special Education for two years. Jacqueline \u00a0was head teacher, Chairman of Special Education and teacher of learning disabled and gifted students at Keller Elementary School in Mesa, and finally took early retirement when she became dance coordinator for the African-American dance teacher, Arthur Hall. He spent many years teaching at the elementary schools in Mesa.<\/strong><\/p>\n**<\/p>\n
Poetry is her primary passion.<\/strong><\/p>\nJacqueline \u00a0has three books in development:<\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cLizard in the Bean Sauce,\u201d a memoir\u00a0of the five years she lived \u00a0in Africa. Her writing including the coup installing Idi Amin. <\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cIn Search of Adam Scott\u201d is \u00a0about her 20-year-old son who disappeared in the Superstition \u00a0Mountains. <\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cRun, Quail, Run!\u201d is a mixed genre of poetry and a narrative of her journey into an exciting and doomed relationship ending in violence.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n**<\/p>\n
870 words<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"and that is why your cousin May <\/p>\n
fell through the parlor floor today.<\/p>\n Continue reading →<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Arizona poet, Jecqueline Williams appears on our first Guest Blog for \"Walking by Inner Vision.\"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trusting-god"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lyndalambert.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Arizona_LargeCactus_Sky.jpg?fit=215%2C384&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gbwn-j2","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1522,"url":"https:\/\/www.lyndalambert.com\/wordpress\/our-final-walk-together\/","url_meta":{"origin":1180,"position":0},"title":"Our Final Walk Together","author":"Lynda Lambert","date":"December 30, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The symbolic image I envision for the New Year, 2016, is the KALEIDOSCOPE. 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Photos and installation of pottery by Lynda McKinney Lambert. March 2014. This display was part of the exhibition, Vision and Revision: Two Artists with Limited Sight, not Limited Vision. Merrick Art Gallery, New Brighton, PA from March 7th through April 3, 2014.","rel":"","context":"In "#Trusting God"","block_context":{"text":"#Trusting God","link":"https:\/\/www.lyndalambert.com\/wordpress\/category\/trusting-god\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"GE DIGITAL CAMERA","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lyndalambert.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/2013_March6_BridalWreathSnow-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":638,"url":"https:\/\/www.lyndalambert.com\/wordpress\/journal-assignment-3-paint-a-landscape\/","url_meta":{"origin":1180,"position":5},"title":"Journal Assignment #3: Paint a Landscape","author":"Lynda Lambert","date":"January 26, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Photos by Lynda McKinney Lambert \u00a0 Winter Trees bY WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS All the complicated details of the attiring and the disattiring are completed! A liquid moon moves gently among the long branches. Thus having prepared their buds against a sure winter the wise trees stand sleeping in the cold.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "#Trusting God"","block_context":{"text":"#Trusting God","link":"https:\/\/www.lyndalambert.com\/wordpress\/category\/trusting-god\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"GE DIGITAL CAMERA","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lyndalambert.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/2013_March_Snowstorm-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lyndalambert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lyndalambert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lyndalambert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lyndalambert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lyndalambert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1180"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.lyndalambert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1224,"href":"https:\/\/www.lyndalambert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180\/revisions\/1224"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lyndalambert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lyndalambert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lyndalambert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lyndalambert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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