Text Box:  Wild Clowns  PRIVATE   "Why don't bears eat clowns?" he asked me, his upper lip curling into smile. I chuckled, “I don't know," and with a giggle he said, “because they taste funny! " I sat next to him taking his hand into mine; "That's a great joke,   can I make an observation?   Somewhere, someplace, sometime,   a bear must have licked a clown   to know that they taste funny.   That must have been in a circus   because in all my days   I have never seen a clown in the woods.   I have looked for them from Louisiana to Alaska   and never glimpsed  red suspenders and yellow hair   leaping over underbrush  paddle–footing away   in a honking rush to elude my camera.   It is said that the wild clown is extinct!"   The lad gripped my hand tightly,  "Why did they die out?" " I believe it was when people forgot    how to laugh and began to ridicule    the ridiculous as having no worth.    We pawned our hearts for merchandise    and being became a franchise,    therapy, an industry.    Wild clowns eat joy and the world starved them out.    Time was when they use to roam in troupes    and appear at the outskirts of towns    to perform their slapstick.    But laughter turned to chuckles    and chuckles to grins,    and grins to apathy,    and they wandered into the dark woods    and painted tears upon their cheeks.    No wild clown has been seen again.    But they may be alive,    so here's what you must do:    Laugh as much as you can.    See the ridiculous in everything.    And each evening    put your joy in a bowl    and leave it at the edge of the woods    and maybe, just maybe. "   Copyright 1998  Dan Kantak