'2010/01/12 Madame And Mahatma (Rev.) Poem by Margaret Alice

(or – Clever With Sums)

With a predatory look the Caterpillar
made a you don’t have to obey this
request: Will you finally take
that wet towel off your head?

Alice, immersed in a deliciousness
of the freezer’s largess, archly
replied: No, I don’t think so, thank
you so much, Sir Caterpillar

The heat is excessive and this towel
helps me think, I would much rather
add another one – which I would do
in a blink was it there

Hearing this and realizing she had
no idea of refinement or elegance, nor
cared how she looked, Sir Caterpillar
unhooked the hookah and held up
a mirror for Alice to see

Seeing the towel wound around her
head, she guilelessly said: My, don’t
I look just like a Bedouin? Perhaps I
should find a camel and go wandering
in the desert

She set off of course and came back
with three large pillows which she
piled on her chair and after struggling
to ascend her camel, rode off into
the endless dunes

Calling ‘giddyup’ and ‘haw-hee’ – Alice
wasn’t sure what Bedouins said, they
travelled over large tracts of sand;
admittedly her knowledge was limited
to Pratchett’s account of camels amusing
themselves doing fractions in the desert

At least, she said, with a camel I shall
never have difficulty with sums; then
Madame la Pompadour shouted come
to her desk, Alice stood in front of that
auspicious person and demurely
hung her head

You filled in the register wrong, Madame
scolded her most wayward pupil, Your
name on the wrong line with wrong date,
as of now, before you do anything you
must touch your ears all around

The great Mahatma said that helps disciples
think clearly when doing numbers, Alice
duly stroked her ears until Madame let her
go; the Caterpillar laughing so much
he suffocated in his hookah

Alice struggled with shame trying
to get back into the game of riding a
camel and learning mathematics from her
four-footed friends quite convinced the
great Mahatma must have seen them
stroking their ears, which is why they were
so clever with sums…