This is a poem called "The Circus."
I get called a lot by charities on the phone--
maybe that happens here, too--
wanting contributions to things.
And sometimes I'd give and sometimes I don't, but usually
they're not really absolutely truthful
about what this charity is for.
If I were on the phone calling people,
this is what I would want to say.
Called "The Circus."
"If you've done things you should still feel sorry for,
then sending your check to the Shriners Circus
Fund for Crippled Children won't make you feel good
anymore than it's made the wife beater feel
good, or the loan shark, or the bookkeeper at the missile
plant.
Send it simply as they do, to sponsor a little joy.
Then if you sit in the crowd, you'll
wonder if the crippled children should
be laughing with the healthy ones,
or shaking their fists at the roof instead with Job's wife,
refusing to adjust to what they'd never
have to adjust to in a world carefully planned and made.
From your seat in back, something
will look so wrong it will dawn on you
why the maker was afraid when Adam and Eve ate
from the tree of knowledge--
afraid they'd notice his slipshod craftsmanship.
It won't surprise you then that many aspire to leave.
That the ladder that Plato climbed
led him away from the visible kingdom
to a beauty that didn't exist and never would,
that wasn't responsible for the pitiful imitations.
No wonder the couple on the high trapeze
delights the children so much, flouting the cloddish law
of gravity, trying to be birds.
And then the army of clowns climbing out
of the car that by any law of matter couldn't hold four.
And still they come, another and another,
while those in the crowd who can't jump up
strain forward in their seats to cheer them on."
Do you have a Kleenex?
No.
No!
Everything else.
All right.
I have a clean handkerchief.
No, I can't use a handkerchief.
[LAUGHTER]
Right here.
I'll use this.
No, no, no.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
Oh, nothing.
This never happens to me.
I don't know what it is.
I think I may be allergic to something
growing in the desert.
Here are some.