It was a dark and stormy night,
tired and hungry we drove towards a light.
Now it was not on pavement, but over desert sand we went,
until we came upon this big giant tent.
Timidly we exited the car, with each step drawing near,
a lantern at the gate told us, ‘Leave all your worries out here’.
We felt our anxieties being pulled right through our skin,
as a Skeleton in a tuxedo waved us both in.
An orchestra of fifty musicians was suspended in air,
playing Beethoven’s Fifth, colorful notes everywhere.
It all was wondrous to behold, how could any of this be?
We saw exotic plants in cages, wild animals roaming free.
There were sparkling Ferris Wheels, floating tea cups, acrobats flying through the air,
unicorns, dragons...Elvis was there.
A clown performed magic tricks, a camera offered to take a photo of us,
Aristotle opined with Confucius, a headless horseman was driving a bus.
We were invited inside a tent, to dine among the stars,
enjoy champagne and caviar on the Moon, Kobe beef steak and lobsters on Mars.
On Jupiter, a green lady gave us ice cream cake off a cart,
then the Ringmaster announced the show would soon start.
In the stadium hundreds gathered watching fireworks burst across the sky,
as psychedelic colors on rippling waves of the wind floated by.
Snow began falling, ice dancers suddenly appeared,
Tchaikovsky arrived for The Nutcracker Ballet, everyone cheered.
Then came the most spectacular trick ever seen,
we went beneath the sea, to a world of red, yellow, blue, violet and green.
With the rising sun the carnival ended, Barnum and Bailey bid us good-day,
a knock at the window woke us up, a sheriff asked if we were ok.
We found ourselves at the side of the road, back near our home in Decatur,
the radio turned up blaring, Entrance of The Gladiators.
We had our photo from last night, so clearly we had not gone insane,
and two tickets for another carnival, appearing soon in Rockland Maine.
Catherine Cahill was born in East Hartford Connecticut. She worked for the State of Connecticut for thirty-one years, retiring in 2017. Since then, she has devoted her time to training in Mixed Martial Arts and writing stories.
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