Poems to Teach to Little Ones

These are the poems that I tried to teach to the schoolchildren in Japan back in May.

"Yak"
The long-haired Yak has long black hair,
He lets it grow-he doesn't care.
He lets it grow and grow and grow,
He lets it trail along the stair.
Does he ever go to the barbershop? No! How wild and woolly and devil-may-care
A long haired Yak with long black hair
Would look when perched in a barber chair! -William Jay Smith

"I'm Nobody! Who are You?"
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us-don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.
How dreary to be someday!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog! -Emily Dickinson

"I Meant To Do My Work Today"
I meant to do my work today-
But a brown bird sang in the apple tree,
And a butterfly flitted across the field,
And all the leaves were calling me.

And the wind went sighing over the land
Tossing the grasses to and fro,
And a rainbow held out its shining hand-
So what could I do but laugh and go? -Richard LeGallienne