Children Poetry posted June 19, 2024


Exceptional
This work has reached the exceptional level
Searching for the spring.

Dilly-Dot The Daisy

by Shirley Ann Bunyan

Dilly-dot the daisy didn’t know which way to go.
She couldn’t find her mother, and she shivered in the snow.
She didn’t like the city or the people on the street,
and wasn’t used to dodging in between so many feet.
“Oh, help me, I’m a flower. I’m not meant to hop on stone.
Someone show me to the meadow. I can’t find it on my own.”

“What’s the matter, little flower?” said a beetle sitting near.
“Your drooping little petals are so very full of fear.”
“I’m on a special mission. I just have to find the Spring,
but I cannot find a trace of it and now I’m suffering.”
“Dearie me!” exclaimed the beetle as he leaned against the wall.
“That’s a mighty expectation for a daisy Miss so small.

Let me take you to the Mungo Man who lives beneath the road.
He understands a lot of things although he’s just a toad.”
So Dilly-dot and beetle slipped unnoticed down a drain.
They hoped they’d find the answers there and prayed it didn’t rain.
“Well, well, what’s this, a daisy and a beetle?” scoffed the toad.
They say I’m going crazy and I think they’re right, be-blowed!”

“Oh, please,” cried daisy Dilly-dot, a little worse for wear,
“Can you tell me where the Spring is, I’ve been searching everywhere.”
The toad, he rolled his bulging eyes and shook his scaly head.
“I haven’t seen a sign of it, I’ve heard it might be dead.”
“Oh, no,” squealed daisy Dilly-dot, “It simply can’t be true.
I have to find the Spring,” she sobbed, “Oh, what am I to do?”

“Don’t cry, my little flower, there is something we can try.
I’ve heard there is a Magic Land where meadows meet the sky.
It’s far away, through caverns dark and creatures of the night.
We’ll have to stick together for a chance of finding light.
“I’m up for it,” said Beetle, sounding braver than he looked.
This was better than adventures he had read about in books.

So off they trooped, all in a line, with Dilly hopping last.
By night and day, through rocky caves, until a week had passed.
“Will we ever find the Spring,” said Dilly, resting on a rock.
The Mungo man, he sighed and said, “We’re up against the clock.”
So on they soldiered, valiantly, until they saw a speck,
a tiny shaft of light. The Mungo Man said, “What the heck!”

With every bit of strength their tired bodies could afford,
they hurried, hopped and scurried as they made their way toward
the beam of shining light, excited, maybe Magic Land was near.
They huffed and puffed, they heaved and coughed and Dilly said a prayer.
Then, all at once, they reached their goal. The meadow met the sky.
The lush and dewy Spring was such a pleasure to the eye.

A crowd of coloured petals, perfect flowers, every one.
Green buds and trees and animals, alive beneath the sun.
But best of all, there stood a group of yellow, white and green.
For Dilly-dot it was the greatest sight she’d ever seen.
Her family of daisies with their leaves out-stretched to greet
their little daisy baby who had wandered on the street.

“You’ve found the Spring, dear Dilly-dot, we couldn’t be more proud.”
The Beetle smiled and hugged the toad who croaked and laughed out loud.

******

So if you ever chance to find a daisy on the ground,
just pick it up and place it in a meadow, safe and sound.
It may have lost its family, be sad and wandering,
but more than very likely it is searching for the spring.

 

 




Poem For A Child contest entry

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#14
June
2024
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© Copyright 2024. Shirley Ann Bunyan All rights reserved.
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