Girl Song

A nursery rhyme, after Béla Bartók

Cheeky fox cub
silken red,
taken to my
flower bed...

Mister Fox! –
I beg your pardon...
clear out from
my kitchen garden.

Your cover is blown!
I’ll have you thrown
into the dungeon
alive or dead –

into the dungeon
alive or dead –
and hold you there
by steel and stone

and keep you, fox,
by flesh and bone
and... forever
for my own.

Thomas Land

If you have any comments on these poems, Thomas Land would be pleased to hear from you.