The Doctor floats a hundred miles
above Earth. Not low orbit--
he just hovers, still, serene.
Always such a show-off!
His best friend comes to visit--
A huge white dove, no, tern.
Elegant, his long forked tail,
and tapering swallow-wings.
He found the Doctor's lost device
to teleport friends up to space,
and invited his friends along--
a feathered throng of grace.
But the Doctor coolly tells his ship
"Eject them all, I want to be alone!"
Spaced, they choke and plummet
freeze-dried within a minute,
even before they reach an air
dense enough to burn them--
not that they do, for these huge terns
tumble and flutter at a mere
hundred miles an hour, to land
almost intact--dried flowers.
On the ground I lift his friend.
Not crushed but mummified
like he's been taxidermed.
White feathers still unscorched.
Brute evidence in hand,
I burst in on the writers, yell
"This is out of character.
I want a script revision!"
And they agree--how can they not?
So Doctor Who relents,
grateful now his friend had found
the mislaid lift-machine.
The toss-out never happened,
the murder-slate is clean.
But my grey slate of memory
recalls his casual cruelty.
He was a Timelord, and they
just rude guests uninvited
barging into his home: all space.
He killed them in a snit!
Do I treat others thus?
Freeze them with scorn,
dessicate with cold dry wit,
banish from my space?
I dread to ask my friends (if they yet live):
Do I tern their impulses of dove
meant as friendship, meant as love,
into intrusion? Must they cautious tread
when my Timelord arrogance rears his head?
| 