A dribble-free fruit
without stones, pips or seeds
whose skin will peel off
with the greatest of ease
revealing a pillar
of creamy-white pulp
which squashes to slime
that’s rewarding to gulp.
Potassium, Calcium
Vitamin C,
no trace of cholesterol,
it’s mostly fat-free.
You have to admit
that it’s simply no drama
to scoff your way through
any Queensland Banana!
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Bash and Flash
I’ve got a see-through bouncy ball
with little lights inside its core.
So when I bounce it on the ground
those lights all flash and spin around.
I think it’s got a battery
to give those lights some energy.
Then when it’s hit, it’s like a switch
that turns those lights on in a twitch.
They don’t stay on for very long
but every bounce will switch them on.
Unless the battery goes flat …
but my ball hasn’t got to that.
I want to see my ball in flight
and watch those pretty flashing lights
so bounce it hard, with all my might
upon the concrete drive at night.
My energy from that strong throw
means, at the point I let it go,
it’s got kinetic energy
that’s greater than just gravity.
And when my ball has hit the ground
some energy converts to sound.
Like rapping once upon a drum
it makes a bang and short soft hum.
I watched those lights flash as it zoomed
towards the starry sky and moon.
So do you think I set it free
to fly off for eternity?
Or will it soon return to me
attracted by Earth’s gravity?
The lights stopped flashing. All was black.
I didn’t see it coming back …
Until it hit me on the chin
then all those lights went flash and spin.
But while I held my jaw in pain
those pesky lights went out again!
I couldn’t find my flash new ball.
It must have travelled on a roll.
I’ll have to wait until it’s day
to find it so that we can play.
Spring in the Arctic
came two weeks early
and Barnacle geese
No more stopping
for rests on their journey.
Three thousand k’s
is a humungous hop.
They cruise at the speed
we’d drive through town
with short bursts of
ninety-five k’s or so.
Marathon flyers
in feathers and down,
with climate changed seasons
just watch them go!
Coco Cough-not
A wintery cough
can feel rather tough.
Persistent and hacking
it sends our smiles packing
then steals counted sheep
so we can’t get to sleep.
Now would you cheer up
to know help’s in a cup?
It turns out that coco
all jolly and ho-ho
can soothe our cough ills
even better than pills.
This chocolate goldmine
contains theobromine
and as we’d expect,
has no ill-effects.
With this coco-cough link
have a hot chocolate drink!
https://www.newscientist.com/article/1919209-persistent-coughs-melt-away-with-chocolate/
An ingredient in chocolate may actually be a more effective cough medicine than traditional remedies, a new study suggests.
Queen Of Dried Fruit
A sultan many years ago
was lounging on his patio
and eating grapes fresh from the vine
that had a mellow yellow shine.
A sultan is a kind of king
who never cleans up anything.
He didn’t finish all the bunch
before he went inside for lunch.
His naughty servants didn’t care
and left the plate of grapes out there.
With all the sun and wafting breeze
those grapes dried to the size of peas.
Their wrinkly skins now golden brown
provoked the king to make a frown.
But thinking they were some new treat
those old dry grapes he tried to eat!
The servants feared he might get ill
then one of them he’d want to kill.
But as he chewed he tapped his feet
then said, Yum-yum. They taste so sweet!
Their name’s sultana, like my wife.
The queen of all that’s sweet in life.
But was it that he also knew
she’d soon go brown and wrinkly too?
Europa’s Secrets by Celia Berrell
There’s hope Europa has a sea
where living things could really be
because this moon of Jupiter
has lots of solid ice water.
The pictures of Europa show
a crusty surface white as snow
with many lines and ridges mixed
like ice sheets that have cracked and fixed.
As Jupiter’s great gravity
distorts Europa’s cavity
that energy and friction heats
and melts some water underneath.
We think this frozen water layer
could make a sea that’s hiding there.
So just below that crusty shell
it’s possible some microbes dwell.
Or what if it turns out to hold
some animals both weird and bold
that roam Europa’s chilly sea.
True aliens to you and me!
First published in Scientriffic (March 2011)
Reproduced with permission of CSIRO
Discovering life exists in places beyond Earth – like Jupiter’s icy moon Europa – could be a reality in our lifetime. Thinking about it makes my imagination run wild! What will these creatures be like?
The first ever spacewalk
In March of 1965
Alexi Leonov survived
the zero pressure out in space
and won the human spacewalk race.
500 k above our world
Alexi floated, spun and twirled.
He felt just like a grain of sand;
a tiny speck in space so grand.
His Russian air-filled space-suit soon
expanded like a big balloon.
Calamity. He’s now too big
to fit inside the capsule rig!
He’d lost the use of glove and boot;
was forced to leak air from his suit.
Intense twelve minutes: fear and fun.
He made it home. The race was won
The Bubble Rap
(an accidental invention)
Back in the fifties
there’s Alfred and Marc.
Two keen engineers
with plenty of spark.
Making a wallpaper
easy to clean
by coating it in
polyethylene.
Their plans were a flop
as blisters went pop.
With troublesome bubbles
the wallpaper’s dropped.
They couldn’t get rid
of that air-filled gap.
Instead they’d invented
the bubble wrap!
If you’re way off track
or you need some slack.
If you think you’ll crack
or you’ve lost the knack
If you’re in a flap
and your mind might snap
then pack up your troubles
in bubble wrap.
Moisture resistant
elastic and strong
it won’t scratch your things.
Abrasion is wrong.
Cushion possessions
on pockets of air.
It makes a good bed
if there’s more than one layer.
Pop it and snap it
or bend it and wrap it.
Bubbles in plastic’s
the best way to pack it.
Body Chemistry
Our bodies perform
lots of chemistry tricks
to break down our food
into useable bits.
We also have microbes
inside us to aid
with eating the chemistry
soups we have made.
These frothy reactions
will bubble and pass
some carbon dioxide
and nitrogen gas
which tries to get out
of our digestive parts
by causing our bodies
to make lots of farts.
Those microbes make
hydrogen sulphide as well.
A gas we all know
by its terrible smell.
It’s not what we’ve eaten
or what we might drink
but mostly those microbes
that make our farts stink!
first published in Scientriffic #71 January 2011
Wormy Work
Earthworms don’t have bony bits
and so they’re called invertebrates.
There’s billions living in the soil
that burrow, stretch, contract and coil.
Creating holes within soil’s layer
can mix it up and add some air
which helps break-down organic waste
and drain the rain in record haste.
Organic matter, we conclude
provides the worms with all their food.
Consuming soil is what they do.
Excreting lots of earthworm poo.
These squiggly clumps of mud have passed
through worm’s insides. They’re called a cast.
Those casts make soil a better place
so plants grow at a faster pace.
Without the worms, the soil would not
stay very clean and start to rot.
The earthworms all have key careers
as eco-system engineers.
Celia Berrell
Australian Children’s Poetry 