I stood in my garden, on a warm summers morning.

The flowers were smiling, resting from toil.

Red Robin was busy, a snail slowly slithered,

as I heard a strange drumming, from freshly turned soil.

A ripple a roll then a sort of a bump sound,

quite regular really, except for the thump.

But I couldn’t quite make out from whence it was coming,

so stone still I stood there and just moved my head.

For a moment all’s quiet, then once again drumming

but it wasn’t quite drumming, as it never changed pace.

Could it be walking or perhaps it was running

but always a thump at the very same place.

The Robin had stopped his prodding and pulling.

The Snail took a pause, put his house on the ground.

The flowers still heavy, with their jewels of water,

incline their bright blooms to pick up the sound.

And then all at once a strange creepy crawly

came running and thumping his way round a rock.

His dozens of feet, all in step as he wriggled

his way round obstacles, that lay in his path.

But each time his legs moved, one after the other,

at the end of each wave, the bump sound was heard.

So I stooped to examine, this busy brown insect,

that hurried along to goodness knows where.

“Good morning Centipede,” I said speaking softly,

for a loud voice can scare an insect you know.

“Please tell me,” I asked him, “why such a hurry

and what is the thumping I hear as you go?”

He stopped for a moment, waved with a feeler,

then with a soft mutter, and a smile on his face.

Told me a story that’s sad though quite funny,

how he’d broken a leg, when he tripped on a lace.

For with one hundred shoes to tie every morning,

it’s really quite easy to overlook one.

So now in a cast, till the bone was all mended,

he bumped and he thumped as he ambled along.

“Please try to be careful, he said as he left me.

Always make sure that your laces are tied.

It’s really quite painful, to fall and break something

and they’ll not let you move, till the plaster has dried.”

 

 

David Garlick, Victoria, October, 1990