A Throne Fit For A King Poem by Raymond Farrell

It was the spring of 1985
Everyone had just
Shook off the winter dregs
The snow had melted
In the deep bush
Here and there trilliums
And other wild flowers
Were starting to bloom
Time for the hunt gang
To head north
And check on the hunt camp
My father-in-law, a few friends and I
Formed a close knit group
Of deer hunters
That maintained a rustic hunt camp
In the Greater Madawaska township
Of Renfrew County, Ontario
Just outside the village of Dacre
On the slopes of Mount St Patrick
It was the most woe begone
Beautiful, pristine piece of wilderness
You could imagine
Mount St Patrick in the spring
Gives a view of the Bonnechere Valley
In vivid color
From thousands of wild flowers
In full bloom
And in the fall
The view is equally as colorful
As the maple leaves
Sport their deepest reds and oranges
But before we made our yearly spring pilgrimage
My father-in-law insisted
The camp was in need of a new outhouse
A flier from Rideau Lumber
Had come in the mail
Advertising particle board on sale
And he felt that would make
An ideal outhouse
He offered to buy the lumber and build the outhouse
So everyone happily agreed to the enterprise
It was a pain staking job
Lugging the lumber and supplies
Up the mountain
But when the outhouse was finished
With its fresh coat of green paint
And red shingles
It looked quite fine
My father-in-law asked Sean Sullivan
What he thought
All he said was, we'll see
My father-in-law responded indignantly
What do you mean we'll see
It's a throne fit for a king
To which Sullivan again replied
We'll see
Summer passed and fall arrived
Early November we packed our supplies
And headed for the camp
To spend 2 weeks deer hunting
All the way as we hiked into the camp
My father-in-law
Kept telling us how great it'll be
To have the new outhouse
When we arrived
There in the clearing
To the left of the cabin
Stood the throne fit for a king
Leaning off to its left
About to completely keel over
It was readily apparent
By the smell of the dung
That littered the site
A number of porcupines
Had developed a taste for the glue
Used to make the particle board
And had chewed around the bottom
Of the structure
And a gust of wind
In all likiehood
Had finished the job
I asked Sullivan what he thought
He took off his cap
And scratched his head
And replied
It's a damn good thing we brought a shovel.