Grga Pitic: "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Nambawan!

Few humans are aware that opossums have a long history of literary output. Perhaps their having opposable thumbs, allowing them to hold to a pen in much the same way as humans, has been a major factor in their creative development.
Unfortunately, because opossums live in the woods, their writings are constantly subject to the whims of nature, and as a result few of their literary contributions are extant. Most older works survive only in fragments, such as the ancient epic poem Beopossum, of which none but the opening lines remain:

Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
possumcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Another ancient work, still recited orally by opossum bards and scops, survives in written form in only two lines:
’Possum! ’Possum! Burning bright
In the forests of the night...
There remain, too, a few fragmentary examples of wisdom poetry, the most notable of which is the surviving stanza of Counsel to ’Possums:
Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time’s bones are a-aching;
And this same ’possum that grins today,
Tomorrow won’t be faking.

  Dennis Morgan Mar 25, 2014 1:24 AM