THE PLASTIC PACIFIC
How much plastic is in the sea?
Fifty-one trillion pieces!
Fifty-one trillion ways to kill
all our ocean species.
Choking, snarling, killingwhales, turtles, and fish;
unless we stop dumping toxic trash
our oceans will diminish.
OTTER SNOT
Does
an otter
have snot
or not?
Whether or not
an otter has
snot,
I know
not.
James Aitchison
It seems to me
that I can see
fingers in the sky.
Cloudy fingers,
each one lingers,
as I’m passing by.
Have you ever seen salt
far from the sea?
Salt that’s still as salty
as salt can ever be?
It’s salt in far Lake Tyrell,
a salty lake, you see,
and tastes even saltier
than salt does from the sea.
Teacher’s note: Lake Tyrrell is a salt-encrusted depression in Victoria’s Mallee district.
A pair of pants blocks my view,
I can’t see down the street,
there’s fresh new snow upon the waist
and every icy pleat.
The lederhosen shop next door
makes leather pants like these,
and they hang a pair made of iron
to dangle in the breeze.
(In response to What’s Outside Your Window prompt #2. Teacher’s note: Lederhosen are short or knee-legth leather breeches often worn in German-speaking regions.)
Have you ever heard a kangaroo
Go ah-choo, ah-choo, ah-choo?
Have you ever seen a koala
Wearing a balaclava?
Cold kookaburras like to laugh,
But have you ever seen one wearing a scarf?
Owls make hoots
But don’t wear boots,
And as for wombats,
They don’t need hats.
So how come you and I will sneeze,
In the midst of winter’s icy freeze?
I’m on the Harry Potter train,
in the highlands bold and bleak,
racing through a Scottish glen,
where mist clings to every peak.
The soul of Scotland calls to me
whichever way I look,
from wind-rushed heather on the hill
to every stony brook.
Teacher’s note: The Jacobite steam train, used as the Hogworts Express in the Harry Potter movies, runs between Fort William and Mallaig. This 84-mile round trip is regarded as one of the world’s epic rail journeys.
Half asleep I pulled up my blind
and saw two men from Mars!
They were in the garden, watching me,
too big for any vase.
With special alien fingers
and huge galactic eyes,
no wonder my friend Philip said
they’d come down from the skies.
A polar bear waved to me
and called a loud “hello”,
as he floated past eating fish
on a jolly big ice floe.
Penguins flapped their flippers,
a humpback slapped its tail,
and I waved back with all my might
as onward I did sail…
In response to the Winter Waves prompt
We turned a corner and there he was,
towering in the air,
a gorgeous dog with enormous eyes
and wheat dust in his hair.
He didn’t bark, he didn’t move,
he gazed out from the wall,
beside his master, for all time,
the biggest dog of all.
Teacher’s note: This silo art is at Nullawil, Victoria, so named because the local indigenous word “nulla” is a killing stick while “willock” means a galah. Both items appear on the medal attached to the dog’s collar.
I sat and watched the night steal in,
across the barren plain,
where a bowl of salt and water
will seize the sky again.
The fire of day lies frozen
in water still and wide,
and the lake will paint the sky
and the two will scarce divide.
Teacher’s note: Lake Tyrrell, a vast salt lake, is located near Sea Lake in northern Victoria.
Australian Children’s Poetry 