We all know kookaburras
love to sit in old gumtrees,
But how ‘bout welcome swallows
twirling on the breeze?
The palm cockatoo
loves to drum his homemade sticks,
While his cousin, with the sulphur crest,
loves to do his tricks.
The colourful rainbow lorikeet
loves to play and chatter,
But the serious powerful owl
likes to focus on things that matter.
Curious black and white magpies
like to warble right on dawn,
Whilst the crow caws away
His sound is most forlorn.
Beautiful little fairy wrens
are hopping all day long,
While the pied butcherbird
sings his melodic song.
The scatter-brained bush turkey
likes to scratch around,
While spotted green catbirds
make an awful wailing sound.
What a wonderful, noisy, crazy,
Colourful and cheery bunch,
Who tweet and chirp and caw
and laugh and drum and screech and munch.
Image by David Clode from Pixabay
On the dreamy river,
drifting with the tide,
past old shutter’d houses
where history lives inside.
Breezes tease the palms,
stir a lazy frond or two,
and in the milky sky
the heat is shining through.
The Portuguese and Dutch,
the British all were here;
five hundred years of stories
like magic can appear.
An old kampong by the Melaka River, Malaysia. Photo by Ginette Pestana
Plants have no brains
but scientists find
that trees seem to think
and weeds change their mind!
Mimosa we know as a
sensitive weed.
It folds up its leaves
when a threat is perceived.
Repeatedly dropped
on a soft mat of foam
Mimosa stops folding
as foam does no harm.
Days and weeks later
no folding leaves shows
when dropped on soft foam
Mimosa still knows!
Image by Leopictures from Pixabay
Sunshine and warmer weather are here along with swooping magpies and hay fever! The smell of wattle is in the air and flowers are blooming. Send in your Spring poems to ozchildrenspoetry@gmail.com
Don’t forget to add the URL and proper attribution to any photos you send in with your poems.
Photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash
Most unusual is Pippa
A ‘mix and match’ of features
One may think perhaps
Belong to other creatures
Her home’s a flowing stream
With banks on either side
In which she has a burrow
A safe, dry place to hide
Her face is like a duck
Yet no quack is heard
Fur instead of feathers?
She is not a bird!
But Pippa lays eggs
And feeds young with milk
A swift and streamlined swimmer
With style smooth as silk
Shy and rarely seen by day
She waits until twilight
Diving into cold and dark
To feed throughout the night
How does she find some food?
Receptors in her bill
Help her catch shrimp and worms
She can have her fill!
Pippa has become a Mum
She’s raised a little one
Playing in the burrow
His time has just begun
Growing strong, it won’t be long
Till Puggles takes his turn
Joining in with nature
A role he needs to learn
Quiet and reclusive
Pippa makes no fuss
But she’s so important
To each and all of us
Protect and save our waters
Rivers, ponds and streams
We must see, she’ll always be
Not just in our dreams!
Puggles is four months old
Almost fully grown
‘Tis time for him to venture out
And make it on his own
Pippa’s care has served him well
But now her job is done
He’s ready to explore their stream
With setting of the sun
Photo by Aaron De Wit on Unsplash
The Australian Children’s Poetry website is looking for a new administrator to manage and maintain this wonderful site. ACP promotes poetry for children, has almost 900 subscribers, and has been showcasing Australian poets and quality poetry since 2014. The site uses the WordPress. com platform and the domain name is managed through GoDaddy. This is an unpaid volunteer position and the person who takes on the role will need to fund or crowdfund the costs of managing the website.
If you are interested and would like to know more please contact Kerry Gittins at ozchildrenspoetry@gmail.com
I wish that in my bathroom
I had a shower like this!
All that water tumbling —
wouldn’t it be bliss?
Cascading down my back,
in a rushing flow!
The only problem is,
where would so much water go?
I’d need a massive drainhole
to carry it away,
and one enormous tap
to turn it on each day.
Waterfall, Milford Sound, New Zealand. Photo by Ginette Pestana
Long ago
even before I was born,
the flowers withered and drifted away-
the petals of my grandfather.
I was two,
at such a naïve age,
I walked into the cemetery
for the first time
my Dad bought a bouquet of sunflowers
as I grasped it in hand,
not knowing the difference between
life and death,
as he pushed the pram.
The sun, crawling through
the gaps of the sheltered trees
to kiss the tombstone
on its polished pebble grey surface.
simple, extravagant, slanted,
there were many of them.
“Hey Daddy…what are these?”
I ask through unfiltered innocence.
he looked at the grave stones
then back at me.
With a bittersweet smile.
“They’re for when the petals dissolve”
Being a naïve kid,
I wasn’t the brightest.
I didn’t know what he meant
but I went to put the sunflowers in the jar.
such simple mindedness.
Now, I no longer have to stand on my tippy toes
to seem tall
and I now understand why the petals dissolve
but even over time,
I still can’t however, obtain the real knowledge
of what my grandfather was like.
Was he funny?
Was he kind?
Of course, I can ask my dad what he was like
but it’s not the same as interacting with him myself.
The bridge of life and death separates us.
The cemetery is a garden of the departed,
where the sunflowers stand as silent sentinels,
each petal that falls is a memory,
each sunflower, a testament to a life lived.
it is a library of souls,
where the sunflowers are the books,
and the petals are the pages,
The sunflowers still stand, silently speaking,
Though time has blurred
The petals may dissolve, yet memories stay,
In the sunflowers’ golden glow, my grandfather’s memories are here to stay.
Hey grandpa, the sunflowers are about to bloom again.
Image by Nikolett Emmert from Pexels
I leap up high and bend in two
till toes and fingers meet,
then follow with a somersault
and land back on my feet.
I bounce back to a dizzy height,
my hands attached to hips,
then arch my spine as I prepare
to do my backward flips.
Both Mum and Dad are sorry now,
the sorriest they’ve been
for never having got around
to buying a trampoline.
There’s clearly been some wear and tear
from all those tricks I’ve aced.
The mattress on my bed is wrecked
and needs to be replaced.
Image from Pexels by RDNE Stock
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