Pomes in a Pail: Music

• MP3 short clip, hi-fi play (broadband)
• MP3 short clip, lo-fi play (modem)

A Marble and a Pebble
Lay together in the grass
Wonderin’ which of them a lad might choose,
Should one come walking past.

The Marble told the Pebble,
“You’re a rough and homely thing,
So bedraggled and disheveled
With your scuffs and scrapes and dings.
Whereas I,” the Marble boasted
With pure unblemished scorn,
“Am round and smooth and flawless
As the day that I was born.”

“It is true,” replied the Pebble,
“You are shiny, I am not.
But Marble, there’s a tale to tell
For every scar I’ve got…

“I’ve rattled ’round in old tin cans
Been trampled by a moose
Got homer’d off a stickball bat
And clunked by a caboose.
I’ve been plunked into a puddle
And skipped across a pond
And hurled so high up in the sky
I glimpsed the Great Beyond.

“Why Marble, I’ve been ’et by ducks
(Always came out in the end)
And ground beneath a gravel truck
By a ton of my best friends.
I was pecked at by a cross-eyed crow,
Snuggled by a lovesick toad,
Been whanged and clanged down dusty roads
Out where the high corn grows.

“So Marble, though I’m pocked and patched,
Been kicked and caromed, cracked and gashed
Whacked and thonked and bonked and bashed
Rusted, busted, scored and slashed
And squirrel’d away in a chipmunk’s stash,
I’ve earned my every chip and scratch
And wouldn’t trade one single nick
For all your blank perfection —
Now stand aside, a likely lad
Comes headed our direction.”

And sure enough, a passing lad
Did spy the mismatched pair…

…And carried off the shiny one,
And left the rough one lying there.
For what do little laddies know
Of battle-scars and medals?
But now you’ll know, next time you choose
The Marble or the Pebble.