The Ant and the Grasshopper

Retold as

The Selfish Moth.

Hi, I am a squirrel. One summer day I was collecting nuts in the forest, near a hut. It got late and I was about to leave when I saw a moth. She was trying to get at a lamp on the window sill. So I said to her, “What are you doing, Moth? You know you won’t get it.”

 Then she hoarsely replied, “I am getting this flower, and I will get it. You are being silly, to ask me that.”

“Why are you determined to get that lamp? Why don’t you go and get at the flowers over there?”  I said to her.

“No, they are the person’s vegetables and I don’t like them. Anyway I will not leave this flower no matter what you say. This one is bigger and prettier that the other flowers too. You are truly being silly about the matter.” the moth said rudely.  “And what did you say about me getting at a lamp?”
 

  Then I said to her, “You know there is glass between you and the lamp. There is no way around the glass. You see, it is inside a hut. And what do you need a lamp for?”  

“I told you, this is a flower, not a lamp,” she screamed at me.

So I gave up the fight, and I left her because she would not listen to me, and ran home.

Then a cold storm came. And in an old pine tree with my nuts I had a happy time, all warm and out of the snow. But {for the moth} after the storm I was gathering nuts again and I went by the hut. And as I suspected at the window, lying on a ledge, was the poor, dead moth that I tried to save. She had had the most painful punishment. It was too hard to bear for the poor moth, and her lesson was:

Don’t try to get what you can’t, but get what you need to live in the days of need.

THE HUNTER AND HIS SON

One day a man went hunting to collect food for the winter. In the winter he and his family had plenty of food to eat. But when his son grew up he was silly and did not gather food for the winter.  That winter seemed long.  He and his family had no food. He knew he had been foolish and that he needed to:

Prepare for hard times.

The Christmas Alphabet Poem

Angels appearing,

Baby Jesus,

Cattle,

Down to Bethlehem,

Elizabeth’s son John,

Frankincense, Myrrh, and Gold,

God sent his son,

Herod’s census,

Israel’s deliverer,

John the Baptist came first,

King,

Lover of mankind,

Messiah from the line of David,

New born King,

Only begotten Son of God,

Presented in the temple, Simeon rejoices,

Quietly escaping to Egypt,

Righteous king,

Shepherds come and see,

Tribe of Judah,

Under a new star,

Visions to protect him,

Wise men seek him,

Xciting evening,

Yearning for freedom,

Zechariah speechless,

            Space

Up in space I see the golden Sun,

Beside the sun sits Mercury the one.

Mercury’s friend, hot but rock, Venus stands,

Perfectly great earth comes next with lands.

Mars is next, red orange with holes still,

Jupiter and Saturn are doing quite well.

Uranus rolls and looks sleepy and blue,

Neptune looks like it has the flu.

Pluto’s friends are comets I think,

And spaceships go up while I write with ink.

Stars sit up in the amazing space,

But I think that’s enough for this place.