It's National Poetry Day

A couple of poems.  Nothing too deep and meaningful, just ones that I've enjoyed sharing with children because I like the images they create.  And because I like hedgehogs and scarecrows!

  Hedgehog Dances

Underneath the pale magenta moon,

Hedgehog dances to a slow, sad tune

Played by an armadillo band

Sitting on their haunches in the soft, white sand.

Hedgehog dances

In a circle on the shore,

Holding up his spiny head,

Dabbing with his paw,

Winding as a question mark,

Mournful as a sigh,

Gazing up into the moon

With brightly eager eyes.

'Moon, I love you!' Hedgehog sings.

'Moon I want you near!'

But moon just goes on shining bright

And doesn't seem to hear.

Hedgehog on the long, white beach

Dances out his love,

Moon is silent silver

In the starry night above.

Andrew Matthews

Found in this lovely (but out-of-print) book which helped raise funds for the British Hedgehog Preservation Society

The Scarecrow

All winter through I bow my head

Beneath the driving rain;

The North Wind powders me with snow

And blows me black again;

At midnight in a maze of stars

I flame with glittering rime,

And stand, above the stubble, stiff

As mail at morning-prime.
But when that child, called Spring, and all

His host of children, come

Scattering their buds and dew upon

These acres of my home,

Some rapture in my rags awakes;

I lift void eyes and scan

The skies for crows, those ravening foes,

Of my strange master, Man.

I watch him striding lank behind

His clashing team, and know

Soon will the wheat swish body high

Where once lay sterile snow;

Soon shall I gaze across a sea

Of sun-begotten grain,

Which my unflinching watch hath sealed

For harvest once again.

Walter de la Mare

I wonder what poems you like?