In the Dark

A Chameleon, in Dublin Zoo.

The chameleon changes his colour;
He can look like a tree or a wall;
He is timid and shy and he hates to be seen,
So he simply sits down on the grass and grows green,
And pretends he is nothing at all.

I wish I could change my complexion
To purple or orange or red:
I wish I could look like the arm of a chair
So nobody ever would know I was there
When they wanted to put me to bed.

I wish I could be a chameleon
And look like a lily or rose;
I’d lie on the apples and peaches and pears,
But not on Aunt Margaret’s yellowy chairs—
I should have to be careful of those.

The chameleon’s life is confusing;
He is used to adventure and pain;
But if he ever sat on Aunt Maggie’s cretonne
And found what a curious color he’d gone,
I don’t think he’d do it again.

by A.P. Herbert (1890-1971)

This entry was posted on June 11, 2020 at 4:06 pm and is filed under Poetry with tags A.P. Herbert, Poetry, Sir Alan Patrick Herbert, The Chameleon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.