Poetry for Animals

Wee Willie

Wee Willie Wagtail;

Perched high in the whistling wattle,

within the winding wood down the way.

See Whimsical Willie wag his tail;

Sporting a white waistcoat,

which he wears proudly night and day.

Watch Wee Willie Wagtail whirl and whirl;

His black and white plumage on display.

See Wee Willie wait on a wire;

Greet the passers-by with fanfare,

within the winding wood down the way.

Now Willie is waging war with the warblers,

and with watchful eyes here he will stay.

Wee Willie Wagtail;

Perched high in the whistling wattle,

within the winding wood down the way.

The Song of Tanchōzuru

How I have longed to be

a red-crowned crane.

To live for a thousand years;

See a world of beauty

through a drop of falling rain.

To wade in a golden river of mist;

Soar through an endless azure sky,

When the snow is falling softly,

over fields and mountains high.

And when the day draws softly close,

and the season’s end is nigh;

I pray to the winged gods above:

Let us live freely, you and I.

So, we became snow ballerinas.

Adrift in a sea of powdered white,

we dance.

We make fire on the breath of gods.

Blue Whale’s Lament

There was a song passed

down to me from hidden tales of lore.

Of 1000 years of solitude and

eternal longing lapping the shore.

It was a tale of 1001 perilous seas;

A sorrowful piece playing

over a mid-Atlantic breeze.

Now, under a nocturne of a blood red moon;

I hear his sorry tune; picture his mottled hue;

Through a vastness of oceans before;

Across an expanse of azure blue.

And when the tide is low, and the evening is nigh;

In an abandoned shipyard of broken dreams,

You may hear a moan; or a guttural cry.

This is his lament.

For he is the loneliest whale in the ocean.

The big boy; the big blue.

Feathered Fowl

There you go again, dear hen.

Fleet-footed and unfettered.

Forever foraging your way

into my bespeckled heart.

I ask of ye, feathered fowl.  

Peck me here, peck me now.

Through scattered seed

My heart doth avow.

For there is many a pleasure

in earth’s godly delights;

Or even a worm or two