Camel poem

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit marvelous Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading for Roundup. 

I'm at a doctor's office this morning—bleh! (Just yearly check-up time, so no worries.) Hope all of you are doing well and surviving the heat. (Another 'bleh!')

This week's ArtSpeak: Animals poem features a camel.

For a long time, I thought camels carried water in their humps. Not true! Also, I didn't know that camels are born without a hump. The hump develops as soon as the came begins to eat solid food. Here's a great list of other camel facts.

I'm drawn to camels for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was the camel ride our family enjoyed (when I was a child) in front of the Great Pyramids in Egypt. "Our" camel was named "Florida"... at least until the next tourist-family came along and told the camel handler where THEY were from. :)

If you'd like a great dive into the mind of a camel, check out ONCE UPON A CAMEL by Kathi Appelt. 

And now here's my poem. I wanted to include facts about the purpose of a camel's hump(s), but in a roundabout apply-it-to-humans way. Thanks so much for reading.

Be a camel when you travel

carry inside you
        a suitcase
packed with provisions—

that way you'll weather
any delays with grace

you won't be distracted
by grit of hunger

your teeth won't chitter
no matter how bitter
the sandswept night

wherever you wander,
whatever your adventure

          you will be filled

- Irene Latham