Three Expediencies

I met a man in Canada, and every day he had the same thing for lunch
He had a carrot, and he had a bowl of chocolate pudding
First, he ate the carrot into the shape of a spoon,
Then, he ate the pudding with the carrot shaped spoon
And then, he ate the carrot



I saw a photograph of Tesla, who invented the Tesla coil
He also invented a pair of shoes, with sole fourteen inches thick,
To Ground him while he worked in his laboratory.
In this picture, he was sitting in his lab, wearing his shoes,
And reading by the light of the long streamer-like sparks
shooting out of his transformers



It was the night flight from Houston,
near perfect visibility
We could see the lights from all the little Texas towns
I was sitting next to a 52 year old woman,
Who'd never been on a plane before
Her son had sent her a ticket and said
"Mom, you've raised ten kids, it's time you got on a plane"

She sat on the window seat
She kept talking about the big dipper, and the little dipper
And pointing
Suddenly I realized she thought we were in outer space,
Looking down at the starts
I said "I think those are little towns"