ManicDDaily

A Room In a Cliff

There was a young boy with a room in a cliff–
so much better than having a moat.
He could climb a ladder right down to a skiff–
a submarine was his favorite boat.

In his sub, he explored the deep ocean floor,
where octopi (at least two octopus)
once banged their suction cups on his door,
and howled, “won’t you come play with us.”

But that boy, who had a room in a cliff–
he knew quite a bit of the sea,
and though the octis’ howls scared him stiff,
he smiled so they would not see–

But the octupi were giant—in fact, squid–
out the porthole the boy took peeks,
and he counted ten, ten, tentacles amid
rubbery ravenous beaks.

He motioned with hands though he had but two
that some other time he would play,
but just that minute he had else to do
like underwater dragons to slay.

There was also his best pet whale to feed–
He signed the word “balleen” with his tongue–
T’was a signal the squids somehow could read
with the sea-creaking song he sung.

Of a sudden the sub began to spin–
for one squid really loved to play cricket–
It was not a game the boy could win–
he felt stuck in a seaweedy wicket.

But when the sub spun, it also flew
high above the ocean’s dark floor,
for that squid was a batsquid through and though,
now no tentacles knocked at the door.

The boy kept to the surface heading home,
opening the hatch to catch sun;
A whale swam close by so he wasn’t alone.
(A nice whale, though not his pet one.)

At the cliff, he climbed back to his laddered room,
after battening with care the hatch lid,
climbed right through the window where nightly the moon
brightened seas inked with games of the squid.

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Here’s a draft children’s poem for the 12th day of National Poetry Month and also for Margaret Bednar’s prompt on With Real Toads to write something in a child’s voice (or for children).   Margaret gave a selection of children’s drawings, but I was thinking of some of the drawings of my nephews, which seemed often to feature submarines and cliff houses.  I’ve tried to recreate one, but it turned out to have an elephant.

Squid actually have eight legs and two tentacles–ten extensions in all–but I didn’t realize their biology until right before posting, so I fudged it a bit.