The tadpole’s now a frog – how strange!
and where’s that duckling gone?
It’s undergone some mystic change
and turned into a swan!
The caterpillar’s been reshaped,
been made a butterfly.
Once, just a bug, it’s now escaped
to navigate the sky.
Spectacular and free to see
in grasslands, trees and ponds
these wondrous acts of wizardry
require no magic wands.
Photo by Pixabay
Mortimer Frog lived down by the creek,
Down by the creek he lived.
And he croaked by the creek,
Croak, croak, croak,
Down by the creek he croaked.
A frog lives in our garden
in a pond beneath the tree.
I hear it croak at bedtime
as it says ‘goodnight’ to me.
A frog lives by our back door
on a post below the light.
I sneak outside to say ‘hello’
because it’s only there at night.
A frog lives in our laundry
in the corner of the wall.
I check when I come back inside
to make sure it didn’t fall.
A frog lives in our kitchen
in the space behind the sink.
It freezes in the torchlight
when I get myself a drink.
A frog lives in our bathroom
and I don’t know what to do
because it isn’t where it should be.
Yuk! It’s swimming in the loo!
My mum comes in the bathroom,
plants a kiss upon my head.
‘The frogs are fine just where they are
but you should be in bed!’
Kristin Says: A few years ago, when I was travelling around northern Australia with my family, I was amazed by all the places where we saw frogs. We saw a tiny frog on the mirror in the girls’ toilets at a caravan park. We saw an even tinier frog siting behind the cold-water tap on the sink. And we saw a huge frog hiding under the toilet seat. I wanted to tell people about all these amazing places you could find frogs, so I decided to write a frog poem. To make my poem more interesting I developed a story about a child who has lots of frogs in her (or his) house. I pretended I was the child, and I was up at night, creeping around my house with a torch looking for the frogs. This is the poem I wrote.
A FROG ON A LOG
A frog
a frog on a log
a frog on a log with a bag full of sticks
a frog on a log with a bag full of tricks
a frog
a magical frog
a mystical frog
a wave
a wave of a stick
a wave of a stick from his bag full of tricks
a wave of a wand from his bag full of sticks
a fog
a magical fog
a mystical fog
a mist
a mist on a pond
a mystical fog on a frog on a log
a frog on a log was no longer a frog
a frog on a log had turned into a dog
a dog
a magical dog
a mystical dog
a dog
a dog not a frog
a dog, not a frog, on a log in a fog
a dog not a frog with a bag full of sticks
a dog not a frog with a bag full of tricks
a wave
a wave of a stick
a wave of a stick from his bag full of tricks
a wave of a wand from his bag full of sticks
a smog
a magical smog
a mystical smog
a twist
a twist of a tail
a magical smog and the pond was a bog
a dog not a frog was no longer a dog
a dog not a frog had turned into a hog
a hog
a magical hog
a mystical hog
a hog
a hog not a dog
a hog not a frog
a hog in a bog
a hog not a dog or a frog on a log
a hog in a bog not a dog or a frog
a magical hog with a bag full of sticks
a magical hog with a bag full of tricks.
Allan Cropper
