The Friday Poem: Long Hairs and Predators on the Trail

Long Hairs and Predators on the Trail... by Peter Bray

As we grow old, long hairs grow
on our ears and eyebrows, 
and need to be trimmed 
out of our nostrils and I’ve often 
wondered why this is?
I think it’s like we were once 
sleek, esthetic cargo planes, 
capable of great efficiencies and distances,
but now are doddering old fuselages
leaking our pneumatic, bodily and other fluids 
and spinning on wobbly tires
 in ever-widening and erratic circles
on the tarmac, endangering light poles,
directional signs, even other 
passengers at the terminals.
Even frogs, toads, and small lizards 
skirmish out of our way,
for if we totally fall, fail, and spasm into passing, 
the carrion, vermin, flies, odor, 
and paramedic traffic patterns would be 
totally out of control and unruly.

I have often thought that these 
selective long hairs 
are a costuming package 
so as not to confuse us with 
wooly mammoths, 
so that predators on the trail 
know exactly who we really are.
As if to say with notable efficiency, 
“Take me first, I’m old and won’t 
be here forever...Leave the tender,
younger women and children alone, 
they are necessary for 
the survival of the species.”
I don’t know if this costuming 
really works, 
all the predators I know on the trail, 
really don’t communicate much.
They just seem to eat and disappear, 
leaving their debris and economic 
ruin behind them.
Under-regulation in Washington, DC
really seems to work to their advantage.
Strange how that works.
Whose side is everybody on?
Would regular, continued shaving work 
to my or their advantage?
Signed,
Still Wondering

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