Egg suction

I had to take a short break this morning from my work on reconciliation of 2nd quarter numbers (before my head explodes... or implodes... um, probably more like implode because this headache really sucks!)...

So anyway, I took down my book of Robert Frost poems and flipped through it. I found one that made me smile. If I have read this poem before, I don’t remember it.

There is an index in this book that tells me this poem was first published in April of 1947 in “The Atlantic Monthly.” Though I know that WWII ended in 1945, I still wondered... so to brush up on what was going on in the U.S. back in 1947, I found this web site. Interesting.

When you think about what’s going on in the world today, and has happened since 1947, particularly over in China, Japan and really all of Asia, this poem seemed to me to be very entertaining. Thus, I share it with you here...

AN IMPORTER

Mrs. Someone’s been to Asia.
What she brought back would amaze ye.
Bamboos, ivories, jades, and lacquers,
Devil-scaring firecrackers,
Recipes for tea with butter,
Sacred rigmaroles to mutter,
Subterfuge for saving faces,
A developed taste in vases,
Arguments too stale to mention
‘Gainst American invention –
Most of all the mass production
Destined to prove our destruction.
What are telephones, skyscrapers,
Safety razors, Sunday papers
But the silliest evasion
Of the truths we owe an Asian?
But the best of her exhibit
Was a prayer machine from Tibet
That by brook power in the garden
Kept repeating Pardon, pardon;
And as picturesque machinery
Beat a sundial in the scenery –
The most primitive of engines
Mass-producing with a vengeance.
Teach those Asians mass production?
Teach your grandmother egg suction.