Lost & Found: Poem

When dark clouds start piling up across our sky, when the wind picks up and the trees start shaking, when the clouds overhead start to boil in a peculiar way and we start getting warnings about possible tornadoes, I start to think about my computer — with all its precious files — being fried. Or worse, being tossed, along with the rest of our home’s contents, across the next five miles of grain fields. So I open up my files, and my DropBox, and start transferring files to that safer cyber-place. Off they go: multiple files with half-polished verses, thoughts I hope to someday clarify and post.

Alas, for me it’s truly “Out of sight, out of mind.” Several years later, (like this week) searching for poems — I’ve been invited to read some of mine at a local coffee shop tomorrow evening — I come across verses I’ve written, hastily filed in cloud storage as the clouds churned overhead, then forgotten about. Here’s one I came across in my search for verses to read. I wrote this as a children’s poem; it may not be brilliant, but I hope it’s passable. I debated leaving the last stanza off, but will rather ask for your opinions.

Caterpillar Caution

The caterpillar reached the road
checked triple, left to right,
fearing rumbling man-machines
that made his life a fright.

He hurried across the pavement;
his dozen feet all speeded
to get him across in rapid time
by danger unimpeded.

One thing that he never saw
the foe he never heard,
above him, hovering hungrily,
a caterpillar-eating bird.

So when you lock your back door
and double-lock your front,
do check out the upstairs, too,
or you might end up lunch.