If a fly . . .
Continue Reading »A RHUPUNT FOR SPRING
Spring’s colour thrills
when daffodils
and bold jonquils
burst into bloom.
Tulips tower,
freesias flower,
colours shower,
banishing gloom.
All spring we’re blessed;
bulbs give their best,
’til time to rest
in a dark room.
James Aitchison
A RHUPUNT (pronounced hree’-pint) is a Welsh poem with some curious rules:
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.
Stephanie Boase
Dinosaurs’ Breakfast Special
Urns of slime
and reptiles’ heads,
giants’ feet
and mouldy breads.
Icy hearts
and mountain eggs,
a ton of tongues
and turtle-legs.
Frogs and beetles
chewed to gristle,
old pine cones
and spicy thistle.
Snake-flesh paste
and baby whales,
slowly simmering
heads and tails.
Blackfish eyes
and stingray skin
mixed and mixed
till slimy thin.
All gulped down
with spidery glue
which sleepy dinosaurs
forget to chew. . .
© Katherine Gallagher
Twiggy
Stick insects are so very thin
Yet still insist on shedding skin
And even when they grow much bigger
Will maintain their sylph-like figure.
Butterfly
Soft as a dew drop
It lands
Dancing lightly
Upon pansy and petunia
Coloured wings flash and flutter
Delicate in the sunlight
Still for a moment
Then off again
Flitting from flower to flower
Sipping sweet nectar
Heralding Spring
Butterfly!
Haystack
Look! Rats and the children run out from
their hiding places in the haystack to
dance in front of us in a merry line?
Who else do you think hides here?
Do you have a memory of haystacks or
artist’s haystacks?
(Perceval’s Angel)
Tumble down the Haystack
dreaming columns of Greece.
Tumble down the Haystack
with childhood farming friends.
Tumble down the Haystack
to horses and the cows.
Now,
climb up that artist’s Haystack
and tumble down again.
June Perkins
Impropagation
A crack in the concrete is all it takes
for a small seed to lodge and germinate.
Its roots exude acid dissolving cement.
And so it has grown where it wasn’t meant.
Ignored by pedestrians tramping through
with sunlight and water it proudly grew.
And look at it now. Majestic and high.
Being kissed and blessed by a butterfly!
Inspired by the Artwork Living Freedomby Sharon Davson www.davsonarts.com
BUTTERFLY MOTHER
Dancing the tune of the breeze
She lifts her coat sleeves –
And freezes as if in prayer
To breed in the shady leaves;
Green confetti in air.
On the rib-case underneath –
A waxy seam of leaf,
Tiny eggs, colour of cream
Are stuck with butterfly paste.
Blue lady lifts as a dream,
Leaving them, to hatch or waste.
Who knows where she goes
Blue butterfly mother?
© Dianne Bates
Australian Children’s Poetry 