Dale The Whale

• Ihsan Mohamed, Grade 5
• Poetry
• 2009

There once was a whale named Dale
Who thought he lost his tail
He wriggled and he turned
And he wiggled and he squirmed
But his tail was nowhere to be seen
In sadness and disgrace
He turned to sit on a rocky face
Where he devised a tail-finding scheme
He’d need a searching team!
He asked the rabbit he asked the hare
He asked the mouse and the old grey mare
He asked the bird he asked the gorilla
He asked the fish and the little chinchilla
Determined they searched but could not find
Except for a rotten cheese rind
But as he looked behind a fence
Came to rabbit some common sense
Where should a tail be he intelligently inquired
I see no point in getting us hired
Why Dale my friend, your tail
It’s on your other end!
Murmurings spread across the throng
All agreed, rabbit couldn’t be wrong
Out of the air leaped Dale with a satisfactory feeling of perfection
Only to spot on the water surface, his reflection!
There he saw his very own tail
The tail of none other but Dale the whale