Rathers

Rathers
By Mary Hunter Austin


I know very well what I'd rather be
 If I didn't always have to be me!
 I'd rather be an owl,
 A downy feathered owl,
 A wink-ity, blink-ity, yellow-eyed owl
 In a hole in a hollow tree.
 I'd take my dinner in chipmunk town,
 And wouldn't I gobble the field mice down,
 If I were a wink-ity, blink-ity owl,
 And didn't always have to be me!

 I know very well what I'd like to do
 If I didn't have to do what I do!
 I'd go and be a woodpecker,
 A rap-ity, tap-ity, red-headed woodpecker
 In the top of a tall old tree.
 And I'd never take a look
 At a lesson or a book,
 And I'd scold like a pirate on the sea,
 If I only had to do what I like to do,
 And didn't always have to be me!

 Or else I'd be an antelope,
 A pronghorned antelope,
 With lots of other antelope
 Skimming like a cloud on a wire-grass plian.
 A bounding, bouncing antelope,
 You'd never get me back to my desk again!

 Or I might be a puma,
 A singe-colored puma,
 A slinking, sly-foot puma
 As fierce as fierce could be!
 And I'd wait by the waterholes where antelope drink
 In the cool of the morning
 And I do
 not
 think
 That ever any antelope could get away from me.

 But if I were a hunter,
 A red Indian hunter -
 I'd like to be a hunter, -
 I'd have a bow made of juniper wood
 From a lightning-blasted tree,
 And I'd creep and I'd creep on that puma asleep
 A flint tipped arrow,
 An eagle feathered arrow,
 For a puma kills calves and a puma kills sheep,
 And he'd never eat any more antelope
 If he once met up with me!