A Paean for Those in Pai-en (to Be Read With a Minnesota Accent)

Let me now begin a paean 

for all who’ve somehow overcome
their sorrows and their pai-en—

sleeping in the rai-en,
not noticing their feet grow numb.
Let me begin a righteous paean

to Abel and to Cai-en.
Cai-en raised a vineyard, while Abel husbanded dumb
beasts. The sorrows and the pai-en

of the sheep were pleasing
to Gad, so Abel succumbed
to the stone paean

flung by Cai-en that began our ba-ene—
Gad’s supper club that only butchers may attend,
So let me now complete a paean

that’s on the hoof, as it were, in its pasture ho-eme,
where savory smoke ascends to Gad’s
voracious nostrils, sniffing for a paean
for all our sorrows and for all our pai-en.