by, Jackie Hosking

There once was a princess who lived far away

She loved to pick bunches of flowers each day

She’d wake up at daybreak to honey on toast

Because that was the breakfast she wanted the most

Honey on toast was her favourite thing

Which dismayed both her parents, the Queen and the King

“I’ll only eat honey,” the Princess declared

So beehives were purchase, so they’d all be prepared

The thought of their Princess without any honey

Just wasn’t a thought that they thought very funny

Then after her breakfast with snippers in hand

The Princess snipped bunches all over the land

Big ones and small ones and ones in-between

Blue ones and red ones, pink ones and green

Then back to the palace with all of the flowers

Arranging and pruning for hours and hours

Daffodils, Daisies, Petunias and Roses

Delighting the small and the biggest of noses 

Then one summer’s day, the sun was quite sunny

The Princess awoke to her toast with no honey

The hives were all empty, the bees had all vanished

The Princess declared that her parents be banished

She sniffled and she sobbed and she mumbled and muttered

And finally surrendered to toast peanut buttered 

Full but not happy the Princess once more

Picked up her snippers and strode out the door

She walked and she walked for mile upon mile

Looking for posies to help make her smile

She searched and she hunted for hours and hours

But to her dismay there were truly no flowers

Not one single rose bush, not even a daisy

No honey, no flowers, the world had gone crazy

The Princess, defeated, went home empty handed

“Where are my honey and flowers?” she demanded

She opened the windows and howled like a hound

But her cries were drowned out by a strange buzzing sound

The bees that had vanished returned in a hurry

And flew to the vases of flowers in a flurry

Bee after bee, flower after flower

Hour after hour after hour after hour

The Princess gave up trying to shoo them away

And she lay on her bed for the rest of the day.

Exhausted the Princess was soon fast asleep

And she dreamt of a honey well, fifty feet deep

She woke the next morning and to her surprise

There on the table, in front of her eyes

All golden and sticky, delicious and runny 

The largest most beautiful fresh jar of honey

The Princess assumed that a well had been found

A huge honey well buried deep underground

She called back her parents, the King and the Queen

“I’m sorry,” she said, “for being so mean.

“Can you show me the honey well filled up with honey?”

And the King and Queen thought the Princess was funny

The Princess however, not seeing the joke

Tried hard not to holler the next time she spoke

“So where did it come from? Explain to me please?”

“Pollen and nectar, flowers and bees!”

The Princess, confused, needed further instruction

On flowers and bees and honey production

So it seemed that her picking of bunches each day

Had caused all the bees to fly far away

To search for more nectar, they weren’t being callous

Then they found that the flowers were all in the palace

Finally the Princess, now wide awake

Understood that her picking had been a mistake

While posies look pretty inside palace towers

Honey on toast needs a land full of flowers

~The End~

About the Author

To find out more about Jackie you can visit her blog  and to find out more about The Croc and the Platypus click here.