What Are We? Poem by RIC BASTASA

1) Two legs sat upon three legs,
With one leg in his lap;
In comes four legs
And runs away with one leg;
Up jumps two legs,
Catches up three legs,
Throws it after four legs,
And makes him dropp one leg.
What are we?

2) Old Mother Twitchett had but one eye,
And a long tail which she let fly;
And every time she went over a gap,
She left a bit of her tail in a trap.
3) Thirty white horses upon a red hill,
Now they tramp, now they champ, now they stand still.
What are we?

We have nothing to say today
We are being asked
What are we
And we think we are bullied
Because
Because we think we know what we are
Because we think we are the obvious
Plain like blue clouds, blue seas, blue kingfishers
Blue, blues, blue bruises, blue flag,
Blue crayon, blue surplus cars
Electric blue, shades of blue

We are black and blue
We feel blue
We think blue
We are blue.

And the obvious is like the biggest mountain ahead of us
And they ask: what is that?
And they see us
And ask us what are we?

Aren’t they all crazy?

We respect them and tell them nothing.
we have nothing to say forevermore.