The Lost Boomerang
For JorgeA boomerang came in a package one day,
I took it right out ’cos I wanted to play
but then in my hands it just vanished away.
Oh where but oh where could my boomerang be
my grandfather sent it, he bought it for me;
d’you think that perhaps it is up in that tree?
The boomerang’s magic, it shrinks very small,
so tiny you hardly can see it at all,
maybe it’s got stuck in that crack in the wall?
This grandfather’s special, you must understand.
He’s neither of those who are ready to hand,
he lives faraway in the grandfathers’ land.
Antarctica’s somewhere my grandfather goes
to visit the penguins and play in the snows,
he sometimes comes back with a frostbitten nose.
He often sends presents he thinks I’d enjoy,
all things that are good for a four-year-old boy,
like boomerangs – it was my favorite toy.
Oh, let’s try to find it! It must be somewhere!
Perhaps there’s a secret place under the stair,
to open right up, if we pressed the wall – there!
Though grandfathers tire and they sometimes need rest,
a summons to play always fills them with zest;
the one invitation that pleases them best:
to go with a child on a boomerang quest.
I took it right out ’cos I wanted to play
but then in my hands it just vanished away.
Oh where but oh where could my boomerang be
my grandfather sent it, he bought it for me;
d’you think that perhaps it is up in that tree?
The boomerang’s magic, it shrinks very small,
so tiny you hardly can see it at all,
maybe it’s got stuck in that crack in the wall?
This grandfather’s special, you must understand.
He’s neither of those who are ready to hand,
he lives faraway in the grandfathers’ land.
Antarctica’s somewhere my grandfather goes
to visit the penguins and play in the snows,
he sometimes comes back with a frostbitten nose.
He often sends presents he thinks I’d enjoy,
all things that are good for a four-year-old boy,
like boomerangs – it was my favorite toy.
Oh, let’s try to find it! It must be somewhere!
Perhaps there’s a secret place under the stair,
to open right up, if we pressed the wall – there!
Though grandfathers tire and they sometimes need rest,
a summons to play always fills them with zest;
the one invitation that pleases them best:
to go with a child on a boomerang quest.
This poem is copyright (©) Philip Kitcher 2024
About the Writer
Philip Kitcher
After a half-century hiatus, spent teaching philosophy and writing far too many fat books on philosophical topics, Philip Kitcher has returned to his youthful attempts at versifying. Some results of these efforts have previously appeared; online in Light Poetry Magazine, in Lighten Up Online, and in Politics/Letters; in print in The Hudson Review, and in the pandemic-inspired collection Voices in Solitude.
