Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Endangered Tree Octopus poems by Donna JT Smith #OctopusMonth


Learn about the endangered tree octopus, which inspired Donna's poems!

And now read the Snopes article about it. :)


Octopus’  Adventure

An octopus climbed out on land
Away from his home in the sea
And the one thing he wanted to do
Was climb eight-armed up a tree.

He scanned the skies overhead
Remarked on it’s light aqua hue
And pondered the eiders in flight
Who also duck-dove in deep blue.

In the branches he spied a gray spider
With eight legs as he, only smaller,
She was building a web to catch lunch
Like the net of a fisherman’s trawler.

Then he climbed down to wet his whistle,
Where he grabbed a salt-free iced drink,
He chose lemonade with a cherry,
Then he lifted eight glasses to clink.

An octopus on land would be marvelous
An exciting sight to behold
But an octopus wouldn’t remain here
Out of water - deep, dark and cold.

Oxygen in air is useless,
To an octopus out of his reef.
He must return to his world soon
He can hold his breath, but it’s brief!
-------------------

Numbered Arms

One arm shaded eyes 
  as he scanned the skies
  another held onto a limb
     (the kind on a tree)
Two arms on hips…
  or were they his lips
  the fifth scratched under his chin
     (where would that be?)
Number six grasped a flower
  his symbol of power -
  to stay out of water was brave!
     (or foolhardy)
Seven wiped tears from eyes
  then eight waved good-bye,
  as he slipped back under the waves.
     (pool party!)


------------
Ha! He lifted eight glasses (in the first poem). :) And I especially love the parentheticals in the second poem. Thank you, Donna, for introducing me to this (fake) species!

3 comments:

  1. How fun! Thank you, Donna, for sharing this mini-course on Octopus paxarbolis. I like "He can hold his breath, but it’s brief!" Such a bravely foolhardy creature! (I had to laugh that the paxarbolis progenitor says that of course they are real: "Would someone with a website lie to you?")

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh glory Donna! I needed this lift.
    Had not heard of this onto-foolery & love your fun with it.
    Which is SO in the spirit of Irene's Agnes!

    ReplyDelete

Your thoughts?