CORA COMES HOME

Cora Conn has come back home From very far away

I asked her where it was she roamed She said she couldn’t say

She said she’d done some secret things In very secret places

And worn a wizard’s magic rings And bet on wombat races

She said she’d learned a thing or two About the way things are

She said she’d seen a tiny zoo All sealed inside a jar

She said she’d heard a monkey sing A very catchy song.

I’ve never heard of such a thing But she said she wasn’t wrong

And Cora, as you may have read, Is not like you and me

She has a very special head And special eyes to see

She knows so much of this and that Much more than you can dream

Like how to teach your sister’s cat To do a high-pitched scream

I begged her for a story and at last She finally did agree

To tell one tale of what Beyond the widehadpassedseeblue

“I’ll tell you all about the day, If you will lend your ear,

I came to the land of Hunnigay A million miles from here

I dropped in on this far- Inofflandrocket-run balloona

The natives, on the other hand, Thought it was the moon

‘Fear not,’ I said, which is my way, As the whole tribe crowded round

But ‘ferenawt’, it seems, in Hunnigay, Means ‘your face looks like a clown’

And the Hunnigayians did a dance And it got a little hot

Even though they took my pants When they put me in the pot

I said I do not need a bath It’s not the bathing hour

Besides it’s just an hour and a half Since I had my morning shower

But the Hunnigayans didn’t listen To anything I said

And my eyes had started now to glisten And my skin was turning red

‘Hey, this place is hot and getting hotter,’ I shouted it out loud.

‘I’d rather not be in this water,’ I told the gathering crowd

But no matter how I yelled and screamed They didn’t seem to understand

And now I was really getting steamed Toward this motley band

And as time went on, my hopes got dimmer I was really in a stew

I could smell something start to simmer And thought, ‘My gosh, it’s you’

The Hunnigayans, having mistook me For a bad guy coming to attack

I figured now were going to cook me And have me for a snack

But brilliant as you know I am And how I don’t like pain

I came up with an instant plan Inside my real smart brain

And making signs I managed to say That I wanted to obtain

A dictionary in Hunnigay With which I could explain

And I learned the lingo double fast And it was worth the rapid toil

Cause I told them who I was, at last And they took me off the boil

And they felt quite bad about the thing And thought they should make up

And so, of course, they made me king And gave me my own cup

I’ll be returning there next year They won’t accept excuse

The only reason that I’m here Is to bring them back a moose.

Cora’s the greatest girl I know I told her she was a winner

But then Cora had to go Her mother called her in for dinner.

#POETRYFORKIDS