Here’s a poem for keepers of magpie charts everywhere. As you collect words like ‘crept’, ‘adorable’, and ‘irascible’, think what happens to the poor words they replace.

Some Words Have Left Our Heart

Some words have left our heart.
They were forced to depart.
Before protests could start.
Some words have left our heart.

Where have they gone,
These words that once shone?
Where are they hidden away?
Well I’ll say what I see,
What I spy with my eye,
And hope you’ll believe what I say.

I see there before us
With mighty thesaurus
A poet committed to art.
He steals every word
As you probably heard
And hides them away in his heart.

‘Walk’ wept as it crept
Then it tip-toed and leapt
From the centre of night
Straight out of our sight.

Some words have left our heart.

That rotten old ‘Bad’,
That irascible cad,
He was sent far away
Though we begged him to stay.

Some words have left our heart.

Oh but ‘Beautiful’ too,
Oh adorable you.
Why would you go.
When you dazzled us so?

Some words have left our heart.

And ‘Brave’ fell too soon
To a valorous moon
That indomitable word
Will no longer be heard.

Some words have left our heart.

Even ‘Cry’ was choked off,
All we heard was a cough,
Not a scream, nor a shout
And then we heard nowt.

Some words have left our heart.

‘Fall’ fell from the sky
But it couldn’t quite cry
So it toppled and tumbled
As other words fumbled.

Some words have left our heart.

Now you may feel hate
As I’m loathe to relate
That poor ‘Say’ disappeared
Precisely as feared.

Some words have left our heart.

So they’re squirrelled away
Like children in hay
Or goods on a runaway cart.
Don’t forget them, please don’t
And regret them we won’t
Those words in everyone’s heart.

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