High Tea
Oh, what the heck
I’ve a rather long neck
But it’s useful for me
Because Devonshire tea
Is my favourite snack
So why would I hold back?
I reached it with ease
But avoided the teas
As the cups are too small
Or perhaps I’m too tall.
However, I’m grateful
For every plateful
You add to your menu
At this divine venue.
Billy went to the barber,
With a kiss-curl in his hair,
When the barber cut it off,
There was a budgie there!
The bells ring
(cling, clang)
Feet dance
(tippity tap)
Voices sing
(hip hooray)
Hands clap
(slap, slap)
The streets cheer:
‘The war is over!’
My curtains draw
(swish, swash)
My clock clicks
(tick, tock)
My tears slip
(drip, drop)
My heart aches
(crash-break)
My brother won’t come home.
The war is over.
The picture in the history book
Caused me to take a second look.
Some boys were scaling up a wall;
It looked to me someone might fall!
The wall had windows: large ones too,
As schools built long ago can do.
These give the students lots of light
And so protect their precious sight.
The walls composed of solid brick,
Had helped these boys perform their trick,
With bricks protruding left and right,
Which hands could grip and hold on tight,
While feet found rest on bricks below,
Until again they’d upward go.
I could not tell how high they dared,
But no boy looked especially scared.
Do schools allow such tricks today?
Expect to hear a swift “No way!”
Since if one child were ever harmed
Then parents would all be alarmed.
The school would feature in the news,
Including irate parents’ views.
These days we’re much more risk averse,
Some think that’s better, others worse.
Let’s make a promise
(during the pandemic)
We promise we’ll unite
When danger’s in the air,
We’ll always do our part
And take that extra care.
We’ll do what Aussies do,
For others we’ll prepare,
We will not be selfish —
We’ll keep our nation fair.
So let us not forget,
We Aussies give our best,
When we face any threat
That puts us to the test.
Body Bacteria
Flaky, floaty flecks of skin
make spacecraft for our body’s bugs.
They’ll colonise most anything
from where we step to who we hug.
My bugs are different from yours.
With many species grown and mixed
to make our unique signatures.
It seems our bugs are fairly fixed.
So, could bugs be our new ID?
Like fingerprints we can compare?
Forensic science might declare
“Your bugs told us that YOU were there!”
WHEN YOU TOUCH a surface, you leave behind fingerprints—distinctive swirling patterns of oils that reveal your identity. You might also deposit traces of DNA, which can also be used to identify you. And you leave microbes. You are constantly bleeding microbes into your surroundings, and whenever you touch something, bacteria hop across from your skin.
It’s increasingly clear that everyone has a unique community of microbes—or microbiome—living on their bodies. We share species and strains but the exact roll call varies from person to person. “If you take a collection of people, their microbes will look very different but their genomes will look mostly the same,” says Curtis Huttenhower from the Harvard School of Public Health. So, could the DNA of these tiny variable residents also reveal our identity, just like fingerprints or our own DNA?
Australian Children’s Poetry 