May Misfortune Smile On You


Once  a god was so thin 
you could see through him.   
When the wind blew, 
he had to hold on 
to keep from following the leaves.  

One day a god came upon him
 blowing from one side of the valley to the other 
and grabbed his ankle as the thin god flew by. 

Why do you always smile?  she asked the thin god.  

The thin god replied, 
Once  there was a god so fat
it took a day for a shiver to make its way
from one side of him to the other.   
One day he sat by the roadside panting so hard 
rocks began to roll  down from the mountainside,
 passing first on one side, then on the other,
 until they made a wall around him. 

What shall I do?   he thought, 
as he tried to push the rocks aside.  
I will surely die if I stay here.

And stay there he did, 
growing thinner with each day,
 until one day he could crawl out between the rocks  
and walk along the horizon.  

And that is why I smile, said the thin god.

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