Found and deposited the check.
Got my September paycheck. Lots of money rolling in suddenly. It’s nice.
White Wolf, where are my redlines?
“you are mighty,” they said.
“The whole earth heeds your command.”
In response he set his throne on the high tide line,
facing the open ocean, the roaring sea,
and commanded the tide to turn back.
Out it went, and left the wet beach empty.
He made them sit with him, all the flatterers,
arrayed like they were in his hall,
facing each other in long rows,
as the petitioners came forward,
one by one.
He heard their grievances,
for he was a good king,
and he apportioned land to the widow
and divided the old cow
between two peasants,
and gave permission
to a woman to marry
against her father’s wishes.
Yet the tide drew up
between the legs of the
would-be bride.
It flowed between the hoofs
of the old cow,
and dampened the socks
of the arguing peasants.
The sea wet the hem
of the widow’s kirtle.
Still the tide came on.
He heard an embassy from France
and the flatterers in their ermine
and their finery
were wetted to the waist.
The spray gathered in their beards.
The monks and bishops came
and waded into the sea,
to hold up the gospel book
and ask his conversion.
And still he did not leave the throne.
Still the tide came on.
At last, when the sun began to set
behind the green hills of home,
he rose from the throne,
and dismissed his court,
who struggled out of the water
pulling themselves shoreward
out of the riptide and the oncoming flood,
and he told them,
“Perhaps the whole world hears me,
but water, at least, obeys its own wishes.”
