Autumn Elegy
Autumn leaves come tumbling down:
Orange, yellow, shades of brown;
Sun-dried, shaken, lost their grip:
Sailing breeze-borne like a ship;
Tossing, tacking, left and right:
Unpredictable their flight;
Watch them wander down the street,
Where in huddled heaps they meet;
Left behind their mother tree:
Weeping still as each floats free.
Monty Edwards
EARTHWORMS
Earthworm, you burrower extraordinaire
How can you stand to live down there
With no arms of legs in the soil so dark?
With your one cylindrical digestive tract
You move with the muscles that you contact
To make your body first short then long
And those bristles help propel you along
Through leaf litter, topsoil or deeper down
You help to mix up the stuff in the ground
This makes you the base of many a food chain
Yet your many skills are the environment’s gain
Your talent with organic matter is biological
And mixing tall the nutrients is a flair so chemical
Then there’s your physical ability of aerating
So the soil ecosystem’s restoration you’re helping
Thus let’s take some time to show a bit of gratitude
For how you improve the quality of our food!
Worms both disgust and fascinate me! I remember my brother holding a worm in his hands as a toddler and exclaiming; ‘One worm two worms!’ as he pulled it part😱. After that I had nightmares about worms for years until one of my pupils brought a worm farm into the class and taught us all about he important work of the humble earthworm… a teacher can always learn from their students!
Elizabeth Cummings
Teacher Notes by Jeanie Axton:
Read this poem to the class a few times and then ask a student to write key words on the whiteboard. As a class research and make a timeline of life in the worm farm. Look at how worms are a sign of a healthy garden and how worm tea helps condition soil and grow healthy plants.
If your really brave have a “Bring your gumboots day” and go out and collect worms to bring back to the classroom. Watch how they move and write a worm poem.
Remember to take the worms back to where you got them after the lesson. They belong in the environment.
Willy the wriggler
eats apple cores
In the worm farm
while he does his chores
Walter the wrestler
likes bean sprouts
In the worm warm
while he works out
Wayne the wanderer
eats bread then naps
In the worm farm
as he grows quite fat
Wendy the whiner
squirms in the grime
In the worm farm
she complains all the time
Wanda the wise worm
reads and reflects
In the worm farm
she has a calming effect
Wilma the wacky worm
would rather party than eat
In the worm farm
dancing to the beat
Together they live
Eat, poop and wee
In the worm farm
to supply our worm tea
Jeanie Axton
Heres a guide on what to and what not to feed our worm friends.
I’d like to walk backwards
I’d like to walk backwards wherever I go,
And meet people moping ato and afro,
I’d bump into pillars and shut out the light,
Or be a long shadow walking through the night.
I’d ask someone how I should get to a place,
And then walk backwards to that point at a pace,
I’d fall in the river and ask to be saved
And allowed to walk once again on the paths paved.
I’d walk into lifts backwards, pulling a trolley,
Or splash in the puddles left there by my brolly,
And when people ask me, “How do you get by?”
I’ll say that in th’ back of my head there’s an eye.
Marc T Low
MEGHAN MARKLE’S MOUSE
My home is my castle — Windsor Castle —
And I live in St George’s Chapel;
Being a mouse I go foraging
for some crumbs and pieces of apple.
My chapel is mostly a peaceful place,
But no! Not on the nineteenth of May:
won’t have a moment to bless myself
when the world comes to visit that day.
They’re making history on May nineteen,
and there will be no time to tarry —
but I’ll have a front row seat to see
Meghan Markle marry Prince Harry!
I’ll hide underneath Her Majesty’s chair —
that should give me an excellent view —
and I’ll wave my tail and squeak hooray
when Meghan and Harry say I do!
James Aitchison
A CLOGYRNACH GOES
(A clogyrnach is a six-line Welsh poem.
Lines 1 and 2 have eight syllables with an a rhyme;
lines 3 and 4 have five syllables with a b rhyme;
line 5 has three syllables with a b rhyme;
line 6 has three syllables with an a rhyme.)
I went to the dentist last week;
he opened my mouth for a peek.
When he saw inside,
his eyes goggled wide.
What he spied
made him shriek.
The news he gave me was chilling,
“All of your front teeth need filling;
they’re full of decay,
I’ll fix them today!”
I said, “Yay! —
start drilling!”
He was deftly wielding his drill
when he sneezed as though he were ill!
He bored through my gum —
drilled into my bum —
“Sorry, chum,
here’s my bill.”
My time in his chair had been brief,
full of torture, terror and grief!
Let my teeth all fall —
no dentist I’d call!
After all —
who needs teeth?
James Aitchison
Don’t Let the Chickens Do Your Homework
Rosie Fields and Ruby Brooks
were capable and clever chooks.
When the friendly household boys
took them shiny chicken toys,
the ladies clucked, “We’d rather books!”
Those boys called Simon, Steve, and Stan,
came up with a crafty plan:
“The weather is so fresh and cool,
the chooks could do our work from school.
We’ll jump in puddles while we can.”
They brought their books out to the hens
and gave them paper pads and pens.
They jumped in boots of brightest red
while chickens did their maths instead…
But chooks don’t know their twos from tens.
They put their teacher in a spin
when they turned those answers in.
“Scritch scratch squawk
and bok bwok bwuawk.”
She tossed it all straight in the bin.
Kylie Covark
Australian Children’s Poetry 