Animals of the World Unite! (Part Four)

by campbells.spain@gmail.com
(Alicante, Spain)

And then another told her tale.
It was the precious nightingale.
“Odes to nightingales are known
to be among man’s loveliest poems.
Immortal bird is what Keats called me
in stirring verse that still enthrals me,
expressed in those pentameters
true poets use and not these amateur
couplets we’ve been forced to hear,
which frankly, Chair, just hurt my ears.
Though couplets please the common herd,
I’m an iambic sort of bird;
that’s why I am the most melodious
of all the birds; none of this odious
la-de-da-de-da-de-da
that’s been our lingua franca so far.
It frankly isn’t up my street,
so may I use five metrical feet
and illustrate why they’re so dear
to me with lines from William Shakespeare?”

Chair didn’t understand a thing
about how feet could help you sing.
or why a biped would contrive
the whopper of possessing five.
But Legal Eagle nodded ‘yes’
though understanding even less,
provided that the learned bird
used her own not others’ words.

The bird then spoke in loftier verse
which everybody thought far worse.

“Unseen I watch the wood nymphs young and fair
as they dance around the bronzéd birch,
and lithely weave their ribbons of fresh blooms.
Hark the woodland’s loveliest tune. Hark now!
Hark the nightingale .........,”

“I think we’ve harked her long enough,”
was Panther’s very quick rebuff.
“Has anyone here understood
why this diva of the woods
is allowed to talk so much
balderdash and double Dutch?”

Chair was set to disagree
when something happened suddenly.
Deer, as usual on her toes,
cried out “Hush!” and stuck her nose
high in the air, a sign of danger;
“Quiet, my friends, there comes a stranger.”
Her sense of smell a threat had found
before the others heard a sound.
“She’s right, I’m picking up its tread,”
confirmed the Spider from her web.
And then the little Horse-Shoe Bat,
not to be outdone by that,
saw through the ultraviolet light
a creature looming into sight.
They asked Giraffe, the look-out post,
“Who is there? How big? How close?”
He gulped and said, “By Jove! It’s grim!
You won’t believe this, but it’s him!”
They screamed as pandemonium grew.
“It’s who, Giraffe, it’s who, it’s who?”
Frustrated by this imprecision,
Hawk, with twenty-twenty vision
glanced along the golden sands
and told them straight, “There comes a man.”

Never had that tranquil ocean
been the scene of such commotion.
As all children are aware,
stampedes at sea are very rare.
But when they heard the dreaded word
those fish stampeded like a herd
of wildebeest who’d seen a ghost
and quickly headed up the coast.
But Chair called them back again;
“Wait!” she thundered, “use your brains.
Can’t you see? This is an omen.
This is our chance. Let’s seize the moment.
There are thousands of us here
and yet a single man we fear?”

Did the animals on land
take a more courageous stand?
Did they stay to face the music
or, like the fish, completely lose it?
In fact they didn’t run or flinch.
In truth they didn’t budge an inch;
but not from courage, no, from fear,
did they to the sand adhere.

Said Chair, “Giraffe, there at the back,
assure him that we won’t attack.
Invite him to the middle here
because his thoughts we’d like to hear.”

So the little man appeared
looking frankly rather weird.
It was Deepak a local farmer
dressed in crimson red pyjamas
and hair in total disarray
not having seen a comb all day,
as though he’d just got out of bed,
which, in truth, he really had.

My goodness, it was hard to say
who was more scared, Deepak or they.
So Chair remarked, all honey-tongued,
“It’s good to see you here among
your fellow creatures at this event.
Your invitation card was sent
but sadly must have gone astray;
you just can’t trust the post these days.”

It was of course extremely glib
of Chair to tell this awful fib,
but let’s forgive her for it made
Deepak a little less afraid.
“You are our friend,” Chair softly said,
“though certain humans do we dread.”
But poor Deepak felt quite subdued
with Tiger eyeing him as food,
and took some seconds to collect
some thoughts to which they’d not object.

“Ten minutes past I was in bed,
but couldn’t sleep a wink,” he said.
“And since my house is just behind
the beach, I thought I’d clear my mind
by coming down here for a stroll
where normally there’s not a soul.
But tonight, out of the blue,
I find the inmates of the zoo
and feel that I’m the captive here.”

Tigress came a shade too near.
“Aren’t you rather short on tact
in mentioning the shameful fact
that humans have throughout the ages
locked us up in dreadful cages?
Tell me, have you ever eaten
creatures present at this meeting?”
The man gazed sadly at the sand.
for yesterday he’d had roast lamb,
and what was more, his staple diet
was chicken curry. Why deny it?
“Yes, there are some at this meeting
That I must confess I’ve eaten.”

Tigress snarled and slowly crept
towards the little man, then leapt.
But Deepak quickly saved his skin
by clambering up the Tamarind
so quickly that the polecat asked,
“How could he get up there so fast
without some monkeys in his past?”
But, you see, no-one had grasped
that he had first shinned up that tree
when he was only two or three,
so every foothold did he know.

And then another told her tale.
It was the precious nightingale.
“Odes to nightingales are known
to be among man’s loveliest poems.
Immortal bird is what Keats called me
in stirring verse that still enthrals me,
expressed in those pentameters
true poets use and not these amateur
couplets we’ve been forced to hear,
which frankly, Chair, just hurt my ears.
Though couplets please the common herd,
I’m an iambic sort of bird;
that’s why I am the most melodious
of all the birds; none of this odious
la-de-da-de-da-de-da
that’s been our lingua franca so far.
It frankly isn’t up my street,
so may I use five metrical feet
and illustrate why they’re so dear
to me with lines from William Shakespeare?”

Chair didn’t understand a thing
about how feet could help you sing.
or why a biped would contrive
the whopper of possessing five.
But Legal Eagle nodded ‘yes’
though understanding even less,
provided that the learned bird
used her own not others’ words.

The bird then spoke in loftier verse
which everybody thought far worse.

“Unseen I watch the wood nymphs young and fair
as they dance around the bronzéd birch,
and lithely weave their ribbons of fresh blooms.
Hark the woodland’s loveliest tune. Hark now!
Hark the nightingale .........,”

“I think we’ve harked her long enough,”
was Panther’s very quick rebuff.
“Has anyone here understood
why this diva of the woods
is allowed to talk so much
balderdash and double Dutch?”

Chair was set to disagree
when something happened suddenly.
Deer, as usual on her toes,
cried out “Hush!” and stuck her nose
high in the air, a sign of danger;
“Quiet, my friends, there comes a stranger.”
Her sense of smell a threat had found
before the others heard a sound.
“She’s right, I’m picking up its tread,”
confirmed the Spider from her web.
And then the little Horse-Shoe Bat,
not to be outdone by that,
saw through the ultraviolet light
a creature looming into sight.
They asked Giraffe, the look-out post,
“Who is there? How big? How close?”
He gulped and said, “By Jove! It’s grim!
You won’t believe this, but it’s him!”
They screamed as pandemonium grew.
“It’s who, Giraffe, it’s who, it’s who?”
Frustrated by this imprecision,
Hawk, with twenty-twenty vision
glanced along the golden sands
and told them straight, “There comes a man.”

Never had that tranquil ocean
been the scene of such commotion.
As all children are aware,
stampedes at sea are very rare.
But when they heard the dreaded word
those fish stampeded like a herd
of wildebeest who’d seen a ghost
and quickly headed up the coast.
But Chair called them back again;
“Wait!” she thundered, “use your brains.
Can’t you see? This is an omen.
This is our chance. Let’s seize the moment.
There are thousands of us here
and yet a single man we fear?”

Did the animals on land
take a more courageous stand?
Did they stay to face the music
or, like the fish, completely lose it?
In fact they didn’t run or flinch.
In truth they didn’t budge an inch;
but not from courage, no, from fear,
did they to the sand adhere.

Said Chair, “Giraffe, there at the back,
assure him that we won’t attack.
Invite him to the middle here
because his thoughts we’d like to hear.”