It isn’t too often a watch
will run backwards—
a clock seldom runs,
it prefers to go slow.
But backwards? never backwards!
I’ve watched them for hours
and I’ve never seen one
go backwards, I know.

I’ve got a friend who says
they go backwards.
Corbin says they run backwards,
they go fast and not slow.
But wait ’till you hear what else
Corbin told me
about the land backwards,
where time runs, you know.

It seems he was walking
on the coasts of Can Catta;
watching his watch run
just as normal as pie.
When suddenly it sprung a spring,
It wobbled and wiggled,
Then the hands started backwards,
and backwards to fly.

And my friend—your friend now
as I tell you his story—
Found his feet going backwards
with each sweep of the hand.
He was passing the hills
and the rills and the village,
backward and backward,
into some other land.

“Ouch!” he cried loudly
as he bumped into something
that was sharp and hurty
and poked at his back.
Then, looking around at the ding-
dangled culprit,
he saw there an Esoom, as mighty as mighty,
eating the corners from a blue sugar sack.

“What? what? what ya doin’?”
sputtered our friend bewildered.
“Why have you got your big
horn in my back?”
“It’s your back that attacked me,”
the Esoom said quickly.
“Please move it and watch
where you put where you sat.”

“I’m sorry, and bewildered,”
said our friend, now politely,
and removed his back
as quick as can be.
“But how can I tell to know
where I’m going
when everything is backwards,
where I can’t possibly see?”

“It is you that is backwards,”
said the Esoom more calmly.
“Your head must have somehow
been stuck the wrong way.
You’d best ask your mother
and see what she tells you,
You hardly look fit to be
outside to play.”

“I cannot,” said our friend,
Whose name was now Nibroc,
“For backwards is the only way
my feet seem to go.”
“Perhaps it’s your feet which are
somehow on backwards,”
Said the sack-munching Esoom.
“But, whatever the direction,
you’d better go slow.”

So backwards, and backwards
our Nibroc now shuffled,
his neck craned around ’till
near ready to break.
And while he was busy
looking for Esoms,
he forgot to look down
and tripped over a rake.

 

 Oh! Nibroc! poor Nibroc!
with troubles so many,
and even his troubles
seemed to go awry.
Instead of falling down
and skinning his knuckles,
he began to fall up,
up and into the sky.

Then, an Elgae caught him
as he fell up so quickly.
It’s head was on backwards
Our Nibroc was sure.
It carried him quickly
to its nest on a mountain
where its babys were hungry—
Nibroc counted four!

Then, the first little Elgae
tried nasty to bite him.
So Nibroc hit it with his watch, on the head.
And that’s what saved him;
his watch saved poor Nibroc.
Without his brave watch
I’m sure he’d be dead.

For, when he began to beat
that mean Elgae,
it fixed his old watch up
as good as if new.
Now it ran forward,
instead of backward;
and forward and forward
its watch hands now flew.

And with them went Nibroc,
just faster and faster,
bouncing down the mountain
heel over hand.
He rolled through a valley,
past the old Esoom,
to the coasts of Can Catta
where he stopped in the sand.

And, there lay Corbin,
tattered and torn.
His face was all dirty,
his knees were all black.
“Corbin, oh Corbin!
You naughty old Corbin.”
His mother had found him,
alas and alack.

For his mother just scolded,
and scolded and scolded.
She looked at his face,
and she looked at his knee.
“Oh! how could you do it?
you sand-playing bad boy.
You’re as dirty as dirty
and as bad as could be.

“And look what you’ve done
to the watch daddy gave you.
It’s bent and it’s scratched
’till you hardly can see
if it runs forward or backward
or just sits a spinning.
If it didn’t run at all
it wouldn’t surprise me.”

Corbin cried a little,
and took the bad scolding.
No one would believe
whatever he’d say.
But it broke my heart
when I couldn’t believe him,
’cause fathers should know
where their sons go to play.

©R. Bartly Betts, 2001