At The Same Time

You cannot hear music and noise at the same time. - Thoreau

with stark, unmistakable synchronicity

a simultaneous joy and pity

a place where the water ran down and collected in the nitty-gritty

the girls long and pretty

debatably witty

'cept for one ripe, old bitty

sitting on her own committee

rocking back and forth 'pon cushioned wicker whist petting her whiskerless kitty

humming an old music-hall ditty

forgetting to remind herself that she's not really that flitty

Author's Note

"We need the tonic of wildness. At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature." - Thoreau