In Praise of Camels

Time was, time was -- and that time is not now -- when any farmer or laborer, for less than the price of  a stack of flapjacks, could buy a deck of smokes that’d do you proud.  You plunk down your two bits, they fork over two packs.  Crisp and fresh from the fields.

And the best of them all, was original, unfiltered Camels -- a unique and brawny blend  of fine domestic and Turkish tobaccos.  You’d carry the pack in the rolled-up sleeve of your T-shirt;  and when the sun was high in the sky, and it was time for a break, you might set down the plow, or find a place to sit on the embankments flanking the tracks, and you’d mop your brow with your bandanna, and knock back a Coke --

and then pull out a smoke.

The wooden lucifer you’d light  with a flick of the fingernail,

and you’d sigh as the flame leapt to life,

then draw it in -- come to me ! --

as you inhaled through the tube of expectant tobacco,

awakening from its long slumber

now alive and alight -- :

and like a dancer   whirling   and twirling her veils,

instantly began to release (sweet relief)

the waves and wafts of sweet frankincense,

that had lain fast in their  caskets of teak,

awaiting the touch of the groom.

And you sigh and give thanks,

sweetly sucking down the golden smoke,

down deep  into the lungs  where it belongs;

then blowing it out  in wreaths of rings,

which float off, expanding, till they rise to the skies,

and delight the choirs of angels.

It doesn’t come like that anymore.

First they stuck on filters, made of, I don’t know, asbestos or something --

something God never intended to touch our lips.

So everyone sickened and died.

Next they started spritzing the growing leaves

with ever-deadlier pesticides,

till it all became a byword for death.

Roasting and toasting,

slowly turning  in Hell,

are the souls of the tobacco-magnates.

Yet sweet and pure   as on the Seventh Day

is the unspoilt blossom

of God’s green earth.

And when He on that Day

shall call Christians from the grave,

then the plowboys and gandy-dancers,
teamsters and counter-jumpers,
wainwrights and boiler-makers,

will rise from the mold,

and ascend like smoke

unto Him.

Gratias agimus tibi, Domine.