Nicky’s Reviews > I Am the Seed That Grew the Tree A Poem for Every Day of the Year > Status Update

October 8th:

Cliché

They came between dusk blue
and the watery moon's rising,
arrows of geese
that made the sky a river
flecked with froth.

Their calling silvered the air,
reflected in glass and puddles,
made twilight a cliché.

But one small boy
who knew geese only from a picture book
watched,
gasped,
wondered.

- Alisson Chrisholm

October 5th:

Conkers

When chestnuts are hanging
Above the school yard,
They are little green sea-mines
Spiky and hard.

But when they fall bursting
And all the boys race,
Each shines like a jewel
In a satin case.

- Clive Sansom

October 4th (world animal day):

Hog In a Wood

Big black hog in a wood
On a truffle hunt.
Head stuck deep in the earth —
Grunt, snort, grunt.

Oh a hog's in heaven when is tongue
Is wrapped around a truffle.
His tail uncurls and his hog hearth
Performs a soft-shoe shuffle.

Big black hog in a wood
Chewing muddy truffles.
Great snout nosing them out —
Sniff, snuff, snuffles.

- Adrian Mitchell

October 1st:

The Leaves Are Green

The leaves are green
The nuts are brown,
They hang so high
They will not come down.

Leave them alone
Till frosty weather,
Then they will all
Come down together.

- Anonymous

September 30th:

New Sights

I like to see a new thing I know
Has not been seen before,
What's why I cut my apple through
To look into the core

It's nice to think, though many an eye
Has seen the ruddy skin,
Mine is the very first to spy
The five brown pips within.

- Anonymous

September 28th:

Poemology

an apple a day
is 365 apples

a poem a day
is 365 poems
most years

any doctor will tell you
it is easier to eat an apple
than to make a poem

it is also easier
to eat a poem
than to make an apple
but only
just.

but here
is what you do
to keep the doctor
out of it:

publish a poem
on your appletree

have an apple
in your next book

- Anselm Hollo

September 22nd (my dad's birthday):

Auguries of Innocence (Extract)

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

- William Blake

September 21st:

Windsong

I am the seed
that grew the tree
that gave the wood
to make the page
to fill the book
with poetry.

- Judith Nicholls

September 18th:

Seven For a Secret

Seven black birds in a tree,
Count them and see what they be.
One for sorrow
Two for joy
Three for a girl
Four for a boy;
Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for a secret
That's never been told.

- Anonymous

September 13th:

The Ferns

High, high in the branches
the seawinds plunge and roar.
A storm is moving westward,
but here on the forest floor
the ferns have captured stillness.
A green sea growth they are.

The ferns lie underwater
in a light of the forest’s green.
Their motion is like stillness,
as if water shifts between
and a great storm quivers
through fathoms of green.

- Gene Baro