One bright sunny day
in a far away land
A senile old man
With a purse in his hand
Had shuffled his way
Towards Everest Mount
Proclaiming that he -
A respectable Count -
Will set off on a journey
Up into the sky
Provisioned with sweetmeats
Some milk, and a rye.
The onlookers laughed
But the man went ahead,
Clutching his purse
Full of meat, milk, and bread
Up stony pathways
And over the creek
His heart fully set
To reach Everest Peak.
Some time had passed
And the man fell asleep;
Under a tree he
Collapsed in a heap.
He woke up hungry,
And bitterly cold
His milk had gone bad
His bread started to mould
So he took out his sweetmeats
And chewed for a bit
Angry at having done
Nothing but sit,
He got up again,
and shuffled along,
For a senile old man
His morale was quire strong.
Some days in the running
He was half the way there
He'd lost fifty pounds
And grew wild, bushy hair
He lived off of squirrels
And rats, and raccoons,
And he kept himself happy
By playing the spoons
But the higher he climbed,
The colder it got
And as far as a coat was concerned
He had nought
So he fought off a bear
And took off his pelt
He could not have imagined
How cozy it felt
And continued on climbing
Till he could climb no more
For he saw something
He'd never witnessed before -
T'was a circular platform
All covered in snow
With the clouds left behind
Far away down below
And a bright, crescent moon
Just hanging aside
Threatening ominously
With the Peak to collide
So the man went ahead
And ventured a leap
For he knew he could not
Descend a mountain so steep
And he steered it away
From the great mountain top
But he put forth a motion
That was never to stop
So he circles the Earth
As he whistles a tune,
The senile old man
In the pale, crescent moon.

Copyright Anna Jvalikovskaia (me).