potw: the grasshoppers

Apr 4, 2011

Spring…at least Idaho’s forty degree version of it…is here and we are enjoying all the birds chirping and insects crawling. Our poem this week is about some disobedient grasshopper children who cannot resist the tug of spring. They simply must be outdoors hopping and playing and LIVING. I remind myself of these little grasshoppers. After a long winter, I want to bask in the sunshine and lay in the grass. I want to see the world anew.

Surely, surely, the sunshine will come soon!

The Grasshoppers by Dorothy Aldis

High
Up
Over the top
Of feathery grasses the
Grasshoppers hop.
They won’t eat their suppers;
They will not obey
Their grasshopper mothers
And fathers, who say:
“Listen, my children,
This must be stopped –
Now is the time your last
Hop should be hopped;
So come eat your suppers
And go to your beds -”
But the little green grasshoppers
Shake their green heads.
“No,
No -”
The naughty ones say,
“All we have time to do
Now is to play.
If we want supper we’ll
Nip at a fly
Or nibble a blueberry
As we go by;
If we feel sleepy we’ll
Close our eyes tight
And snoozle away in a
Harebell all night.
But not
Now.
Now we must hop.
And nobody,
NOBODY,
Can make us stop.”