Animal Kingdom Poem by Shankaran Kutty

This one was written for my two daughters.

The lion is the king of the forest
And heads a mighty pride
But if ever you happen to meet one
Just walk away by the side

The rhinoceros has a horn or two
And a skin so thick and tight
But the main trouble with him however
Is it’s tough to spell it right

The elephant is a funny animal
With a tail on either side
One it needs to feed itself
The other to swat the flies aside

The zebra is a beautiful animal
But I have never got it right
Does it have white stripes on black
Or is it black on white

The Cheetah is like Usain Bolt
For no one can run as fast
You can never see it running, for
It only whizzes past

The Hippo is a dirty animal
For it plays in mud all day
But it can open its mouth so wide
That you can build a 2 lane highway

The giraffe has the longest legs
And its head is up in the cloud
Which is good, if its baby gets lost
Can easily spot in a crowd

Once I saw a spotted leopard
And climbed a tree to hide
But in a bound or two and a leap at the end
The animal was by my side

Then there was this Anaconda
That entered a burrow at dawn
By the time its tail went in
The sun was long since gone

In the bushes once, a hungry lion
A deer, it tried to catch
But it jumped here and there, then there and here
Which the lion just couldn’t match

In the Nile, a crocodile once
Caught a lion in its jaws
It ate the lion from head to tail
But didn’t know what to do with the paws

Let me tell you the story then, how
I was chased by a grizzly bear
I ran so fast but he caught up with me
And said “Haven’t we met somewhere”?

A tiger once caught a cat which said
“hey, you belong to my family “
“You can stay within the family”, said the tiger
As he gobbled her up happily.

As much as I love these animals
I would prefer seeing them in the zoo
I can’t say I am scared of them
But I prefer taking my daughters too.