Mrs. President Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

Once upon a time
there was a land
that consisted of only
ice and snow.
No plants would grow
and no footprints
were left by anyone.

People lived
in snow huts
similar to the igloos
that we know from
the picture books
about the Eskimos.
Inuits for the more
educated among us.

The Inuits were hunters,
not really gatherers
since there was so
damn little to gather,
they had round faces
and wore moustaches,
both genders, they
were widely known
for their great hospitality
which extended
a very warm if not hot
welcome to visitors,
allowing all males
to partake of
the soft skin and the fruits
that grew on the warm trees
of native wives.

Females who stayed
overnight were asked to
help with chores,
like cleaning fish and
cooking heads and tails
as well as innards of
all creatures hunting had,
for generations quite unchanged,
procured. No sex for women
from the white man's land.

One day, it was a bitter wind
that signaled to the men
that it would be quite prudent
to return, get off the ice,
they saw the polarbears,
a dozen, in retreat, due North,
unfinished seals left strewn
and for the hounds to get.

A snowmobile arrived,
alighting was a thick fur coat
and sunnies, the expensive type.
'My name is Sarah', she was heard
to say, 'I am the guv and I am here
to bring new rules from Anchorage,
I do have a small fault, a plug
I think, made not in USA,
with this here snowmobile
and need to stay until the morn'
perhaps you'd show me where
the caribous do hide. A hockey MOM
I am but YOU cannot be bright enough
to play the game, we need to change
the way you folks get educated
and the way you think. Trust me, we will.'

Night came upon them as it does
north of the Hudson, with the cloak of stealth,
they settled down for supper
and the stories now began.
The fire roared and it was hot
inside the common home.

When morning came, it saw
the Guv stand by the sink,
outside, dressed in her furs
and scrubbing fish and slicing
gobs of blubber to be buried
in the ice, there to ferment.

Word came from USA
it had been bombed,
the land and all its folks
into oblivion, Russkies, sure.

Thus Sarah stayed to live
among the Inuits, she cleaned
all fish and made strong soup
from heads and innards
of the local fish. She did it well
and now and then she thought
of what they used to do at home,
with Todd, when he was sober
and the servants were asleep.

However, due to rules in place
for centuries, draconian rules,
no visitor without a dufflebag
or one of what you'd call
expandable appendage
of the fleshy kind, would ever
be allowed to taste the fruits.

For that, the climate is too harsh
and all the seeds need to be saved
to tend the gardens of their own.
But, in the end, they called her,
just to make her feel the LOVE,
'Our Mrs. President'. Oh well.