Impundulu

I always thought they were absurd,
your bedtime tales of lightning birds.
You said, no matter what I do,
I must not take the woodland route,
for hidden deep within the trees,
The Impundulu waits for me.

But that day I was late for school,
and so, I broke your golden rule,
And as I ran into the woods,
I heard a sound that froze my blood.

I scrambled up into the trees
and watched and waited, trembling,
terrified they were all true,
your stories of Impundulu.

Then from the fog, I saw it LOOM,
a glittering great black bird of doom.
Its huge beak snurkled round its lair,
it snorted black clouds in the air,
a hulking frizzle-feathered thing,
with zazzle-stripes and mega-wings.

I hunkered down amongst the leaves,
(So, I saw it — it saw not me).
I watched it with my widening eyes.
It shrieked and croaked and howled and cried.

Then zimble-zambled back and forth,
then sprang and snarled its way up north.
And hangerous and spiky-stiff,
it stomped and crashed up to the cliffs.

It opened its great leather wings,
and as it flapped, the lightning zinged!
Its nostrils puffed out clouds again,
then came the hiss, the rush of rain,

the smatter, blatter, thunder CRASH,

the hreeee, the howl, the super-SMASH,

the roaring, storming HUGE KABOOM!

Was it a dream?
I’m in my room….
and I am safe,
and I am warm.

But outside, there’s a thunderstorm.