Has your hedgehog been pestering you about volunteer opportunities? Put that hedgie to work for charity at the second-annual Wheel-A-Thon! Let's just hope there isn't too much self-anointing going on.
I had never heard of "self-anointing" before, but I've seen it several times in singles bars.
It can generally be defused by a cosmopolitan.
Top shelf ingredients only.
aye, to love an urchin
now that springsummer fall is here
and whoever loves a hedgehog
had better be damn clear
on the perils of prickles
the jabbings from spines
pangs of hedgehog love requited
do more than tickle
and tears that subsequently flow
are saltier than wine
Bernardo Atxaga
The Tale of the Hedgehog
In his nest of dry leaves the hedgehog has woken
his mind so suddenly filled with all the words he knows.
Counting the verbs, more or less, they come to twenty-seven.
Later he thinks: The winter is over,
I am a hedgehog, Up fly two eagles, high up,
Snail, Worm, Insect, Spider, Frog,
which ponds or holes are you hiding in?
There is the river, This is my kingdom, I am hungry.
And he repeats: This is my kingdom, I am hungry,
Snail, Worm, Insect, Spider, Frog,
which ponds or holes are you hiding in?
However he remains still like a dry leaf, too,
because it is but midday and an old law
forbids him sun, sky and eagles.
But night comes, gone are the eagles; and the hedgehog,
Snail, Worm, Insect, Spider, Frog,
disregards the river and undertakes the steepness of the mountain,
as sure of his spines as a warrior
in Sparta or Corinth could have been of his shield;
and suddenly, he crosses the boundary
between the meadow and the new road
with a single step that takes him right into my and your time.
And given that his universal vocabulary has not been renewed
in the last seven thousand years,
he neither understands our car lights,
nor realises his forthcoming death.
Bernardo Atxaga, born in 1951, is well known in Spain, where he is considered one of the most innovative of European writers. His poems were published in several collections in Basque.
I just attended a weekend seminar on Basque Culture--fascinatin'!!
springsummerfall is here and whoever loves a hedgehog had better be damn clear on the perils of prickles the jabbings from spines pangs of hedgehog love requited do more than tickle and tears that subsequently flow are saltier than wine