With a little bite here and a little bite there
Those grass roots are growing everywhere
Oh the life of a chafer can be so fine
And everything below is mine, all mine
It’s throbbing with life below the ground
I am just a baby, so don’t kick me around
My mum said stay here for another two years
There is plenty to eat while you are wet behind the ears
And when the grass dies because you have eaten all
Have no fear, in the next meadow it still grows tall
One day you will be big and grow your wings
With your pulsing body you grow and meet the man of your dreams
But mum, where is dad, I began to cry
She answered “do not talk of him he is the reason why I will die”
And now I am alone, just munching all day long
But I am growing daily and getting nice and strong
No-one seems to like us, but we have our aim in life
Eating all the roots with teeth cutting like a knife
And now to dig down deeper, I am shovelling on my way
The life of a cockchafer is to eat without delay
One day we will arise as a cloud of flying darts
I will swarm with the others in a rhythm of pulsing hearts
So spare me a thought if you find me in your yard
The life of a chafer can sometimes be quite hard
Gosh! Did you just have verse ready to fall out of your head and onto the page as this prompt arrived? Chapeau!
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First I think it over. My lovely lawn is under siege from the offspring of the June beetles at the moment, so what could be better. I took a few photos of the beasts
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You need birds! They came and cleaned out all the grubs for us. I’m not sure how you invite them, though. They seem to have found us all by themselves and at every single grub.
This could become “the lawn keeper’s lament” and be a song for homeowners world round!
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There are only crows here and rhey have no interest. I think our birds are too well fed to bother with such small fry as a chafer.
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What a great poem! We call the adults Junebugs down here in the American South.
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We have May bugs, which are really big but no longer see so many. When Mr. Swiss was a schoolboy, he would have to collect them for the local authorities with the other schoolkids to keep their numbers down. Now we have the big brown ones, the June bugs. Once their babies are in the ground they begin to eat the roots and that is a problem we have at the moment and there is not much you can do about it. Just hope that the birds arrive and eat them.
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