Oh, To Be Born in the Year of the Pig

Oh to be born in the Year of the Pig, the Pig

To be born in the Year of the Pig.

Was it Ode to Be Born in the Year of the Pig?

Never mind, the rhythm's fine 

And so is your luck

If you come forth 

In the year of the swine.

Chinese, in thrall to calendar ways

Want babies in this blessed year.

Those who show up will be

Prosperous, fat and hap-hap-pee.

But wait, birth in any year 

In the cycle of twelve, 

Whether pig, or horse or the other ten 

Calls for rewards

So why the hype? Because

This is the Golden Year of the Pig

That comes around once in 60. 

In Golden Years,

Bonus blessings shower newborns.

So all across the Asian land

Hopes and pregnancies

      are soaring

Three million more than normal

     are emerging

Strained hospitals are overrun

      with piglets, shall we say?

But they've got it wrong

All that glitters is not gold

Ah, now we're told

This pig year is earthen.

In fact, 

The last Gold Swine was '71; 

The next,  2031.

Why such a colossal blunder

In a land renowned for skills with numbers?

Pursuing higher numbers (of yuan) 

      trumped common sense

Suppliers of diapers, oils and baby food

Gilded the ordinary year of the pig

And triggered a flood of tiny tots.

Still reeling from the tarnished news,

New parents are not whooping 

      it up in birthing wards

The sudden baby boom

Will up the ante in years to come:

For seats at school, for jobs,

                 but have no fear

The Pig knows not of demographics

And superstition knows no bounds. 

Other reasons will be found;

Other years gilded soon.

Surprise, surprise

In a thoroughly secular state

They will bow down before golden mammals.

© Bill Sypher, 2013

Carvings of the animals of the Chinese Zodiac
on the ceiling of the gate to Kushida Shrine in Fukuoka
Photo by Jakob Hatun
from Wikimedia Commons