THE QUILL

THE QUILL

A crow knocked on my window,
And left one feather there,
It was as black as midnight,
And proud beyond compare.

I made the feather into quill,
Then dipped it carefully,
It shook the ink across my desk,
And spelt, “Don’t bother me.”

I asked it for a love poem,
It wrote about a sock,
That married Granny’s bloomers,
Behind the cuckoo clock.

I told the quill, “Be serious,”
It stabbed the page with spite,
Then wrote, “Your rhymes are crooked,
And none of them sit right.”

We argued over commas,
We fought about each line,
It crossed out all my lovely words,
Then signed its name, not mine.

The quill flew through the window,
Still dripping drops of blue,
It wrote a verse across the moon,
Then bowed as feathers do.

It wrote upon the neighbour’s cat,
It wrote across his gate,
It wrote, “The poet’s lost her mind,”
In letters six feet eight.

The crow came back at breakfast,
And called the feather home,
The quill jumped on his waiting wing,
But took my finest poem.

That evening all the newspapers,
Declared a crow could write,
He stood beside my stolen verse,
And bowed beneath the light.

So now I use a pencil,
Although it’s not quite true,
A feather wrote my masterpiece,
Then took the praise and flew.