More Craziness Than You’ve Dreamed Of

Insanity takes many forms, and I've seen some of them in my life, but the type of insanity that most affects me these days is this kind: doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.

More about this later. Right now, I have to offer you a poem. I’m taking a break from insanity to ride the World’s Greatest Poetry Bus. In honor of what Bus Driver Poet Peter Goulding claims is “one of the most important dates in the Roman Catholic calendar ~ Pancake Tuesday, named after the venerable St. Pancake,” I have done as Peter commanded and composed a ditty to the pancake. Peter also demanded that we write in the persona of a poet of our choice. I chose Joyce Kilmer and to satirize his famous poem “Trees.” If you’re inclined to read somewhat ridiculous poetry, we Bus riders will be linked here.

First, Kilmer's version. He was a brave soldier who lost his life in WWI.

Trees
By Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
~~~~~
Now my version:

I Think That I Shall Never See

A poem lovely as a pancake
Giving me a hearty handshake.
Against my hungry mouth is prest,
With butter flowing from its breast,
An angel’s golden halo round,
A saucer of the sweetest brown.
It makes me lift my hands to pray
But no, my fork is in the way.
I shall in homage always wear
A nest of pancakes in my hair.
Upon their bosom I have lain
While maple syrup falls like rain.
Poems are made by fools like me
But pancakes come from pancake trees.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now back to the topic of insanity. In the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, you’ll frequently hear, “If you like what you’re getting, keep doing what you’re doing. If you don’t like what you’re getting, change what you’re doing.”

My injustice meter has been shrilling its alarm for quite a while. A heartbreaking development in my family since my mother died last summer has finally exploded like an alien in a scene from “Men in Black.” Purple alien blood goo drips from the walls.

Twisted events have twisted me and interfered with my serenity. I wiped some of the purple alien blood goo off my glasses today and found these lines in a book I love: “I can find no serenity until I accept that [disturbing] person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake.”

Today’s realization is that I need to withdraw from the battlefield. I had wanted to right a wrong, but I was wrong. It’s time to recognize that I’ve become insane as I defined it in that paragraph up there.

It takes a lot of swallowing to give up. My faith that good will come of this is weak. My husband, who has gobs of faith that God will accomplish his plan for the situation we face, has asked me to stop trying. So I’ve decided I’ll lean on my faithful husband and let God do whatever he wants to do. I guess that shows the degree of my pride, because it implies that God needed my help. From now on, it’s hands off. Excuse me while I go wash off the rest of the purple alien blood goo.