There Was An Old Woman Who Didn’t Know Something Had Changed

 There was an old woman

Who didn’t know

Something had changed

She woke up one morning

And she couldn’t tell

What it was

She made her breakfast

The same breakfast

She had made for herself

Every day

She ate the breakfast

She said ‘Hello’

To her mailwoman

And her neighbor

Getting his newspaper

And the lady walking her dog

None of it is any different

Than any other morning

In her life

But she feels different

And she doesn’t want to tell herself

That nothing is different

So she decides

To try

And find

What’s different

She gets on her bike

And rides it to a nearby park

Where she gets on a slide

And slides down it

Only to find herself

In the middle of seven squirrels

Who had not been expecting

To find an old woman

Coming down a slide

In the park

These squirrels picked up

The old woman

And brought her into the forest

Next to the park

They set her down

In front of a brown bear

Who asked her

What she was doing

Going down slides

On a day where most people

Are working

Or reading their newspaper

In their kitchens

Or their living rooms

The old woman told the bear

How she had woken up

Feeling that something was different

But she didn’t know what

And she decided to try

And find out

Where that feeling was coming from

The brown bear laughed

And told the old woman

That certainly she had found the difference

What with being carried off by squirrels

And meeting a talking bear

But the old woman felt

That things weren’t quite different enough

Even with all that had happened so far

The brown bear invited the old woman

To climb onto his back

And he took her deeper into the forest

Then to the other side of it

Where there was a beautiful beach

And on the beach

Was a ship

And the old woman
Climbed onto the ship

And sailed it

For days

And then weeks

And then months

Traveling all over the world

To different countries

Meeting different people

Until finally

After almost a year

She returned to the beach

Then the forest

Then the park

Then the slide

Then to her home

She never felt as though
She found that different feeling

That she felt the day she woke up

And decided that she couldn’t do
What she had always done

Every other day

But she had many adventures

And now, what had felt the same before

Now felt very different

Having been away from it all

For so long

She went to bed

And wondered how she would feel

When she woke up

The next day

Maybe she would feel different

Or maybe she would feel

A different feeling

That was the exciting thing

About drifting off every night

You never knew

What you’d be chasing after

Tomorrow