Hello, I'm on a voyage to save the world.

Will you come along?

We're all a little bit crazy here, a touch mad, a touch queer and furious at the world so.

I'm on a voyage to save the world, the baby bunnies, the vicious crocs. The stinging nettles, the strangling creepers, the stinky flowers, the big bamboo--I'm off to the save the world, now will you?

***

You said of course you'd come along, this dance intrigued you, this passion called you, and that's how I found a friend to save the world with me.

Goodbye, I'm on a voyage to save the world, with you, we'll start at the far ends and work our way in, like this whole planet's just a hundred piece puzzle, all fixed up in a simple afternoon. I'll take the south, you can have north, I like the penguins, the polar bears treated you nice anyway.

Goodbye, I'm on a voyage to save the world, I feel like the moon now that you've come along, less alone, circling a home.

We thought we'd save the world one day, and we didn't do it all in one day, but at least we did a little bit more and met again in the middle, a hundred times, crossed the sea and the savannahs and the steppes to see each other again.

("Hello," we'd say, "I'm on a voyage to save the world, and I've done a little bit more since the last time our orbits overlapped."

"Hello, I missed you, can we take a picnic break here for an hour or so?"

"Goodbye," we'd say, "I'll picture you as one of the dolphins, one of the goose flock, glowing on sunstruck rivers."

"Goodbye," we'd say, "I'll see you again one day.")

In our dreams. (Listen, can you hear us singing hello and goodbye forever?)

Hello, goodbye. (Silence now replies.) See, I once went on a voyage to save the world. I put puzzle pieces in their places, a hundred of them, but the size of the puzzle kept growing taller than a single afternoon. I once asked you to come along and save it with me, but we're all crazy thinking we can save the world, aren't we; a touch queer, a touch mad, a bit topsy-turvy, can you hear us singing for the world?

***

So picture me, darling, while we're apart, all soft and draped in white. Beneath the street light, I could pose just like the snowpeople, the marshmallow peeps. Won't you imagine me like that, cutie pie?

While we're apart: I'll sing your daughter to sleep in the dangerous world, the gunshots in the city, the strangers high on the bus. In this world of the depressed kids, the schizophrenic teens, the high school cliques with nothing more pressing than wishing after homecoming queen.

While we're apart: I'll wake your daughter with aromas of breakfast in the dangerous world, the hurricane hit Florida yesterday, the locusts swept South Sudan. A plague's sweeping Nigeria, have the communists collapsed Taiwan?

Picture me grateful she ate her chocolate chip waffles, dear, her pinkies sticky with syrup. Picture the two of us dancing through harmless Everglades, a canoe clean in the water, oars as ivory as elephant teeth.

We walk through the dangerous city, your daughter and I, earmuffs are for the cold, yes, not muffling gunshots and broken glass--look, darling, somebody spilled their snowcone. Watch out for icicles shattering off the roof.

I'll pick her up from school by five, I'm off to the save the world now, bye. I'm rich and famous in my madness and dreams, you believed, you came to save it with me.

I'll take your daughter to school today, her papa would've been so proud, living in this dangerous world, do you think she can hear you singing hello and goodbye, forever?