Poem by Ogden Nash

That Reminds Me

Just imagine yourself seated on a shadowy terrace,
And beside you is a girl who stirs you more strangely than a heiress.
It is a summer evening at its most superb,
And the moonlight reminds you that To Love is an active verb,
And the stars are twinkling like anything,
And a distant orchestra is playing some sentimental old Vienna thing,
And your hand clasps hers, which rests there without shrinking,
And after a silence fraught with romance you ask her what she is thinking,
And she starts and returns from the moon-washed distances to the shadowy
veranda,
And says, Oh, I was wondering how many bamboo shoots a day it takes to feed
a baby Giant Panda.
Or you stand with her on a hilltop and gaze on a winter sunset,
And everything is as starkly beautiful as a page from Sigrid Unset,
And your arm goes round her waist and you make an avowal which for
masterfully marshaled emotional content might have been a page of Ouida's or
Thackeray's,
And after a silence fraught with romance she says, I forgot to, order the
limes for the Daiquiris.
Or in twilight drawing room you have just asked the most momentous of
questions,
And after a silence fraught with romance she says, I think this little table
would look better where that little table is,
but then where would that little table go, have you any suggestions?
And that's the way they go round hitting below our belts:
It isn't that nothing is sacred to them, it's just that at the Sacred Moment
they are always thinking of something else.

1. No, You Be a Lone Eagle
2. Celery
3. Bankers Are Just Like Anybody Else, Except Richer
4. Just Keep Quiet and Nobody Will Notice
5. Very Like a Whale

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