Reetta Niemelä: The Blue Fly Circus – children’s poetry

Reetta Niemelä – Salla Savolainen: The Blue Fly Circus and other poems about our creepy-crawly neighbours (Sinisen kärpäsen sirkus ja muita runoja naapurinötököistä, Otava Publishing Company 2010, 40 pp.)

The Launch-pad

The wasp, a little dreamer, popped a lollypop in his pocket.
He has a soap-bubble machine in his knapsack.
And a small drill in his handbag. Slowly and bravely,
he steps onto the rose-petal launch-pad. 

The Mothsong

Oh butterfly tree, tree of lace
A thousand oval mouths, a thousand bird cherry maggots
Oh butterfly tree, tree of veils
A thousand thin children, a thousand gossamer wings
Oh butterfly tree, tree of gauze
A thousand thanks for your union of cobwebs

The Map

Be seated, says the friendly master printer beetle. He offers the children truffles and mead just like a master printer beetle should. Today I’m going to engrave the greatest of great maps he says cryptically. The map will tell of distant days, adventures, ice-castles, the green waves of the forest. 

The Orange-peel Boat

The spider is sailing in an orange-peel boat. There’s a flea onboard. The sun sets. The star map lights up. The spider and the flea are on their way to the Jump’n’bump competition.

The Knight

The hay butterfly is swinging in the hay. It thinks it is a knight. Riding to Sweden. The hay sways, the clover laughs: Remember how the hay smells, funny hay butterfly. Remember how the sky sways when you’re in the swing.  

Translated by David Mitchell

For more translations and foreign rights please contact:
OTAVA GROUP AGENCY
Hanna Kjellberg
Foreign Rights Manager
hanna.kjellberg@otava.fi
www.otava.fi/oga