The Second Tortoise

Tortoise Two didn't win a race.

An eagle picked him up, flew high,

then dropped him to shatter his shell and make him a meal.

But instead of a rock, he hit the bald head of an old man.

The head cracked, but the shell did not.

Aeschylus, the tragic playwright, died in comic absurdity.

But the tortoise landed on his feet.

He had seen the world from on high,

and a great man had died that he might live.

After twenty-five hundred years,

he still walks proudly,

standing on the world,

even if he can’t understand it.