POWIP Piece of Work In Progress – Former Abode of Dan Collins

Eeyo Sees a Smelt

[With apologies to Dr. Seuss]

On the fifteenth of May, in the San Joaquin Valley,
In the heat of the day, in the middle of Cali,
He was sipping…enjoying the vinyard’s great joys…
When Eeyo the Wilsonite heard a small noise.

So Eeyo stopped sipping. He looked towards the sound.
“That’s funny,” thought Eeyo. “There’s no one around.”
Then he heard it again! Just a very faint glub
As if some tiny creature were sucking a bub.
“I’ll help you,” said Eeyo. “But who are you? Where?”
He looked to the pond. The water was brimming.
A lugubrious bug in it seemed to be swimming.

“What ho!” murmured Eeyo. “I’ve got to the nub
Of the important creature that seemed to say glub.
So you know what I think?…Why, I think it's essential
To confer on it more rights than human potential!
Some sort of a smelt of very small size,
Too keen to be noticed by ignorant eyes…

“…some poor little creature who’s shaking with fear
That he’ll run out of water! My purpose is clear!
I’ll just have to save him. Because, after all,
A creature’s a person, no matter how small.”

So, gently, and using the greatest of care,
The Wilsonite stretched his prodnose through the air,
And he lifted the smelties and carried those creepers
And placed them down, safe, where the water was deeper.

“Humpf!” humpfed a voice. Twas a sour old farmer.
And the young buckeroo with him too said, "Alarmer!"
“Why, that smelt is as small as the head of the pin
That I see on your neck where a brain should have been.”

“Believe me,” said Eeyo. “I tell you sincerely,
That humans are killing the earth and quite clearly.
A smelt is important, important galore,
Quite likely there’s two. Even three. Even four.
Quite likely…

“…a family, for all that we know!
A family with sea kittens starting to grow.
So, please,” Eeyo said, “as a favour to me,
Try not to disturb them. Just let them be.”

“I think you’re forgetting,” said the humorless farmer
We need to grow crops here, zoo-olo-unharmer.
It's key to the economy hereabouts.
So please do remove now your prodnosy snout."
“What bad irrigation!” the Wilsonite stated.
“I can’t have my friendly wee smelt dessicated!
I’ve got to protect them, you ignorant thugs,
And do try your best not to crush any slugs."

He went to the city, the news quickly spread:
“Those terrible farmers all want smelties dead!
Just look at those yokels who work with their hands,
Believing they've got water rights to their lands!
We'll teach them, we will, of the terrors now felt
From horrible farmers by poor Delta smelt.
They must stop their profiting, for, after all,
A creature's a person. No matter how small.”

Then Eeyo got exercised; he rang up Pervis,
Who worked in the Fishies and Wildlife Service:
"You will not believe what these farmers are doing,
The entire biosphere's likely ungluing!"
“My friend,” came the voice, “you’re a very fine fellow.
These terrible farmers are harshing smelt mellows.
You’ve saved all their habitats, ceilings and floors.
And all of their smelty-fish locavore stores.”

“You mean…” Eeyo gasped, “that I am a hero?”
“Oh, yes,” piped the voice. “Just like Chairman Zero.
These ignorant yokels must learn it's obscene
To threaten a species so friendly and clean.
Their livelihoods seem to them rather important;
It's time that their britches were suitably shortened.
We cannot have farmers pursue irrigation
And Delta smelt suffer in sad indignation.”

So Pervis then went to the Judge of Interior,
To demonstrate farmers' poor claims were inferior.

The Judge of Interior's name was Judge Smudge.
His tortured opinions were prolixy sludge.
The Judge said the farmers had no rights to water
Where Delta smelt trembled at imminent slaughter.
"These Delta smelt citizens have rights like you do!
Stop taking their water and practicing Voodoo!”

The farmers were angry, their fields were all drying
And cabbages thirsted and whispered, "We're dying!"
And locavore hippies felt bummed out and jilted,
To see how their weedy-weed plants were all wilted.
They called up their Congressmen so they could hear,
How awful it felt to be thinking so clear.

But principled Congressmen know what is right.
Saving the Delta smelt was worth the fight,
And saving the biosphere from fast ungluing
Was right up their alley like young intern screwing.
Besides, they could bribe folks for this golden thing,
For "money" and "favors" both have a nice ring!

Both Eeyo and Pervis, comparative-speaking,
Were babes in the wood, believing their shrieking
Had saved the poor Delta smelt husbands and wives,
And minnowy babies their smeltiful lives.
And too bad if farmers and crops had to suffer,
For they were the high-minded smelty smelt buffer.

But meanwhile in DC a storm was a-brewing.
A shrew with a whip was a whipping and shrewing
To make representatives come to the table,
Presenting them deals of whatever was able.
She fungibled this and she fungibled that,
And then she got down to the Califo Cats
Who knew that Free Health Care would be a big bust;
They needed a voting-time bribe they could trust.

"Look here, Madam Speaker," they said to the shrew,
We've got an idea for a deal we might do.
Our farmers want water, they're really quite angry!
Our phones won't stop buzzing and beeping, they're clang'ry!
Our phone answering staff are all cranky and tired!
If we could just stop it, then we'd be admired!
Perhaps you could turn on the spigots, you see:
A wink and a nod and abortions are free!"

The shrew tapped her nose and she nodded her head…
"There's less eco-damage if babies are dead.
At least, human babies. Too bad for the smelt.
If they could just vote, they'd be otherwise dealt.”

And Eeyo was stunned when the news was imparted:
He screwed up his prodnose like somebody farted.
"But how could the blackguards abandon the fishes
Without taking counsel, at least, of their wishes?
I mean, human babies come one dime a dozen,
But how will the Delta smelt feel to be cozened?
It really is vicious it so should befall.
A creature's a human, no matter how small!"

The farmers were sad to see Eeyo that way,
But some say his insight was trebled that day.