Friend Pushing The Envelope Poem by Chuck Toll

An unusual woman
With talents to spare,
Andi loves pastimes
Both common or rare.

Crossword puzzles she guzzles,
Card games and Sudoku too,
From quilting to dancing
There’s naught she can’t do.

She’s deadly at word games,
Mathematic ones too.
Her caramels draw raves,
She can even make stew.

But her talented nature
Can both fizzle and lag
When the challenge lies outside.
At the door she will sag.

Outdoor adventures
Are just not her thing.
There her confidence scatters
Like birds on the wing.

But beaching last summer
She left all astounded
When, grabbing kayak
And paddle, she bounded

Into the water, hopped in
And was gone with a smile.
Farther and farther,
Well over a mile.

Across the bay she went bobbing
Where sports craft roar through
Till she and her kayak
Were quite lost from view

O woe! ! Where is Andi?
Who hates outdoors sweat?
Should we call out the Coast Guard?
We don’t see her yet.

Then a speck on the waters
Slowly hove into view.
Like finding Livingston in Africa,
T’was too good to be true

But on reaching the shoreline
To massive applause.
Andi tipped over,
We don't know the cause.

As she lay in the shallows,
She said, “You know, Life is grand
Though it seems I’ve forgotten
What is needed to stand.

'Now that I’ve turned fifty,
Quite beyond expectation,
Whatever I do should be
Cause for elation.

'But this end to my voyage
Still seems somehow fitting,
Reminding us all
That my forte is knitting.”

So Andi’s not Wonder Woman
But still mighty plucky.
Her adventure was epic
Despite landing unlucky.

To compare Andi’s voyage
with that of Kon Tiki
might seem hyperbolic
but so what if it’s cheeky?