We all knew Willie Brinn;

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       a constant in our lives,
       yodelling his way along the road
       or swaggering a tuneless whistle
       across the hill. This idiot boy
       who squatted at the top end of our street
       where town and country met,
       easy in either environment.

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       We pitied him, his childish ways,
       prodding at the cowpats with a stick,
       roaring his demented ditties to the stars.
       We pointed, laughed behind our hands.
       Willie smiled and whistled on, rolling
       like a schooner, out of view.

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       Not for him our worries
       about Castro and the Bay of Pigs,
       the Cold War tensions that might
       some day blow into a hurricane
       of whirlwind terror.

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       Frank Ifield's latest hit
       was more the fare
       of Willie's addled brain.

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       And so we worried; Willie sang
       "The Wayward Wind" or "I Remember You,"
       as happy as the day was long.

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       Oh yes, we all knew Willie Brinn.
       But only now, with hindsight,
       can we admit how much
       we envied him.