In Australia, when it’s Christmas hot,
A farmer’s keen for a little drop
of rain from heaven, upon his roof,
of Santa’s gifts, he looks for proof
Then drumming starts above; he hears
his wife call out “It’s rain dear!”
Walter de Jong
Kookaburra sits
On a clothes line tall,
Carefully surveying
The urban sprawl.
Spying a movement
In the grass,
He swoops down swiftly.
Dinner at last!
Won’t you laugh kookaburra,
Laugh for me?
Your life is so much harder
Than it used to be.
My Mother’s Horse-shoe Ring
(after Grace Nichols)
Sometimes when I see it
on my index finger
I am reassured,
rub its ruby stone, her gift.
I need this small reminder
of her, its lucky charm
that catches me
like an itinerant fire
chipped from the sun.
©Katherine Gallagher
Published in Acres of Light Arc Publications, 2016)
Four Legs
Four legs and a tail
it could be a dog.
Four legs and a croak?
That’s a frog!
Four legs and a hump –
it must be a camel.
Four legs and fur?
It’s some kind of mammal.
But four legs and a mane –
long legs for trotting,
strong galloping legs,
and a tail for fly swatting?
That’s easy now,
I know it of course!
That four legged friend
is a horse.
Penny Szentkuti
Six Geese A Laying
Have you ever come across a goose who’s laid a nest of eggs?
I’ll tell you now you’d better hope you brought your running legs.
That goose will make a honking sound as loud as she can blast,
Then chase you far away from them; so furious and fast.
So it was hard to work out what my new true love was saying,
When he handed me a box containing six grey geese a laying.
It’s not a bit romantic, or thoughtful, sweet or fun,
To give someone a Christmas gift and then to scream out,
“Run!”
Notes
On the eighth day of Christmas (1st January), New Horizons (the space probe that took photos of dwarf planet Pluto back in July 2015) will be 6.6 billion kilometres from Earth, travelling at 14 kilometres per second, flying past a rock about 37 kilometres wide called 2014 MU69 (nick-named Ultima Thule) in the solar system’s Kuiper Belt. If it doesn’t bump into anything on the way, we will receive images from its cameras just over six hours after they are taken. This is an incredible technological adventure with cosmologically amazing consequences. What an exciting way to start the New Year!
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2018/nh-ut-100days.html
