The Poet’s House

They too know it that it is a poet’s house, I mean them, The frogs, lizards, bats, owls, pythons, jackals, wild cats, orioles, Hedgehogs, water birds, How dear my house is to them! The frogs, three types of, commonly found grey frogs, Sometimes coming as a big jumper The greenish well or tank living frogs And the rarely found plastic-coloured strange tree-climbing frogs, Moving upwards, If on your shirt, it will not like to go away easily. The lizards, red-mouthed or necked not, But the simpler blackly streaked ones Live they near my clothes Hanging from the hanger, The lizards hanging by the wooden hanger. The small-small blackly bats with the eyes dotted and teeth tiny and sharp Hanging by the iron grill gates, Just like the parachutists, Umbrella-covered and wrapped over, The mouth of the rat design, Like the porcupine But without the spikes. The owls coming into the house sometimes, The owls yellowish and blackly, The yellowish bringing good fortune, As say they, The blackly ones ominous, May forebode ill, Which but I do not know it. The snakes lie they coiled in my heaps of pale papers But the non-poisonous ones, Sometimes closer to me, Sometimes see I sleeping them underneath my cot, One day have I python resting on the bathroom doorstep, One day a grey hooded and hissing cobra caught they the charmers From the garden. The hedgehogs often see I living by the pond closer to my house, They passing through, Eating watery grass, food items thrown over or floating at times To run to safety, The bigger rats. The grizzled-grizzled wild cats often pass by And I see them slipping out, Marking with a glaze and running out Into the bushes, The grizzled-grizzled wild cats With the burning eyes. The golden orioles, their sweet notes, hear I When they come nearer to And sing they from, Pouring forth Their golden whistles, Golden, Strangely golden, unbelievable, But stripes blackly, A fine colour! Water birds, two types mainly, One dark grey, but spotted white, Freckled and streaked, Just like the hen, But is not While the other blackly, But like the heron And it can fly away too, Slowly, But the cannot, Will like to escape away. The jackals often pass by and see I with love and liking, Just like the dog, but is not, Is moody and wild, Wily, swift-footed and untamable, Appearing on and jumping away, But daring when alone.