The Yak
by Hillaire Belloc

As a friend to the children
Commend me the Yak.
You will find it exactly the thing:
It will carry and fetch, you can ride on its back,
Or lead it about with a string.

The Tartar who dwells on the plains of Tibet
(A desolate region of snow)
Has for centuries made it a nursery pet,
And surely the Tartar should know!
Then tell your papa where the Yak can be got,
And if he is awfully rich
He will buy you the creature –
or else
he will not.
(I cannot be positive which.)

I’ve been trying to review the children’s poems with them to get ready for Arts Alive. Just a few minutes ago I was helping Luke learn the poem he chose: “The Yak”. We read through it a few times, and then he asked me if a yak was a real animal. “Oh yes!”, I replied. So I went to google.com and found several websites. The picture you see here is the first one I showed to Luke. After he looked at it he asked, “…a nursery pet?” I laughed out loud. I didn’t realize that Luke had no idea what a yak was. I explained that the poem is so funny because the yak is so NOT a nursery pet.

Anyway, now we know more about yaks than ever before, and now I want to have a yak someday when we live in the country. Did you know that there is a farmer in Idaho who raises yaks? How interesting!