Civility Is Awfully Nice

In a white, white world
you elect pragmatism
or vote for extinction
there's no room for dialectics
the hand you dealt
is the hand you play
survive or perish, all must eat

Igloo structures are stout
houses of ice, blocks cut precise
allow no draft, a couple can even strip,
and as warm as an igloo is inside
Eskimo society is cool --- that is to say,
as civil as you could expect,
and civil is nice, especially considering
that survive or perish, we all must eat

Whether whale blubber or polar bear
chew your food well in order to ensure proper digestion
and as sure as the above true,
true as well is what follows:
That if do not eat, you will not shit
and if you do not shit, you will die
(I would've said it in French,
but there, I said it in Anglo Saxon)

In the white, white world of Eskimo olden times,
the general code of civility was understandable
when senior citizens could no longer hack it
you built for them a final igloo
to die in private and in dignity
so that as many miles as had to be logged
the hunt could continue unimpeded
a bon voyage not as harsh as it may seem
as previously stated, an igloo is warm as toast
and simultaneously air conditioned
and no less so the final igloo resting place

Thus as you entered it, so you exit
the plainest theology under heaven
breath and transfiguration under the Northern Lights
that colored undulation which vaults nature's spirits
the wolf's, the salmon's and the seal's

Now for a moment
let's venture southwest to Kansas
where the Family Livingstone Family face a situation
similar to our furry friends in the Arctic
two sons and two daughters, and what to do about mother?
78 years old and aging faster than a prairie autumn
Soon she'll be bound on that midnight rocket to Valhalla
and the truth be told, the sooner the better
Why? 'Cause she's born again, why else?
And the sooner, the swooner she'll be with precious Jesus
And the sooner we'll be bequeathed the farm, the pickup truck
and the thousand shares of Ford Motors which were Daddy's
Two sons and two daughters and a bunch of grand kids
and the whole of Midwest beginning to look again
like the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, deja vu