June 06, 2005

"The Ungulates"

Does this happen to you? You're hiking or cycling or backpacking and a tune just gets stuck in your head?

Today I was walking with M. down an overgrown skid trail in the Wets, where the passage of deer and elk keeps a little path open among the young firs that are filling the opening that the loggers made decades ago, and it starts (with apologies to Desmond Dekker):

Get up in the morning, searching for browse, sir,
so that every mouth can be fed.
Poor me, the ungulate.

My cows and my calves, they pack up and a-leave me.
Darling, they said, we were yours to receive.
Poor me, the ungulate.

Antlers them a-tear up, velvet is long gone,
I don't want to end up like Bonnie and Clyde.
Poor me, the ungulate.

After a storm there must be a calmin'
Your catch me in your farm. You sound the alarm.
Poor me, the ungulate.


Enough. I'll stop now.

No comments: