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The Tortoise and the Hareby Jan D. HodgeHare was a confidentfellow, but sadly he lacked the humility virtue assumes. He was convinced of his invincibility, boasting that he could out- run the simooms. Seeking occasion to show off his prowess, he challenged a laggardly tortoise to race, certain the ludicrous juxtapositioning offered no possible threat of disgrace. Tortoise, a case-hardened realist, knew that the odds were against him, but drolly agreed, forcing himself into peripatetical action and straining to get up to speed. Hare with a laugh started running and quickly was so far ahead that he sat down to rest, when, overcome by a physiological impulse, his head nodded down to his chest. Snoring more loudly and sleeping more deeply, he dreamed he was hearing a glorious song. Meanwhile, old Tortoise kept unostentatiously plodding and plodding and plodding along till he passed Hare, who was caught in a horrible dream being badly out- run by a djinn. We who of course have been mythopoetically programmed anticipate Tortoise will win. Don’t you believe it, for just then a tickle of dust in his nostrils caused Tortoise to sneeze. Startled, the lagomorph ontogenetically raced to the finish as slick as you please. Tortoise, however, was humble and easily took it in stride with a nonchalant air, quipping as neophyte paronomasian that he had only been whipped by a hare.
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Jan D. Hodge grew up in a letterpress print shop in small town Michigan, was educated at the Universities of Michigan (B.A., M.A.) and New Mexico (Ph.D.; dissertation on Dickens), and taught for 32 years at colleges in Illinois and Iowa before retiring. His poems have appeared in North American Review, New Orleans Review, Iambs & Trochees, South Coast Poetry Journal, Western Wind, and elsewhere.