Double Picnic

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Double Picnic

I decided to walk one day in the wood,

Wanting to see Little Red Riding Hood.


It was barely noon, but the wood was dark.

Perhaps from the black of all the tree bark.


The barn owls were already beginning to hoot,

Which is exactly why I tripped on a root.


The items inside the bag I had brought

Flung themselves out in a right and left shot.


From down on the ground, I looked all about,

Searching for the things that had gotten out.


The cookies were safe, all wrapped in their twine.

But Mom’s fresh bread didn’t look all that fine.


I picked up the apples lying there in the dirt,

And wiped them off with the corner of my skirt.


I’d almost filled up that lunch bag of goods

When along came a bear whose home was the woods.


“Grrrrr!” said the bear with his eyes on that lunch,

He wanted the food was my pretty good hunch.


“No!” I cried out, “This food’s for my friend

Who lives over there, where the woods seem to end."


“Grrrrr!” said the bear with his eyes glowing red.

“All right,” said I, “Nibble on some zucchini bread.”


The bear sat beside me and pulled out his bib,

He gobbled that bread. I tell you no fib.


“I’m so glad you liked it,” I said to the bear.

“It won Mom a ribbon at the last county fair.”


The bear stashed his bib and stood up to go.

“Thank you, kindly,” he said, speaking quite low.


“My friend won’t believe this,” I said with a smile.

“Red? Sure, she will,” said he. “I’ll return in a while.”


With that final statement, he then lumbered off.

When I told Red what the bear had just said, she scoffed.


But the bear came along later with crackers and cheese;

So we sat and munched, as merry as you please.

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