I am not sure what inspired me to write this poem as a teenager. Likely it was born from a love of fantasy and mythology. Perhaps I was just playing with rhyme. Maybe I was feeling silly. Or all of the above. The only thing I’ve changed from the original is some punctuation.

Nevertheless, consider yourself forewarned, should a baby dragon drop in to visit YOU …

Once, a baby dragon

dropped in to visit me.

He flew right through my window

(he’s not too bright, you see).

He was quite a charming fellow

with enormous, greenish scales,

quite polite, this dragonlet,

who came to hear my tales.

I told him one of Pegasus,

the horse with wings of gold.

I told him one of Camelot,

of days when men were bold.

The dragonlet, he loved these tales!

He begged and begged for more;

once he laughed so very hard

he burned down my front door.

I told him of the Lion King

who secretly had sworn

not to tell the whereabouts

of the only Unicorn.

When morning’s light awoke me,

the dragonlet had gone.

The only trace I found of him

was on my neighbor’s lawn.

Photo: Baby dragon. Derek Hatfield. CC BY