The Groon By Ray Bradbury

This was the first time I was "creeped out" by a poem! I was 11 years old. It took me a long time to get this... (39 years later) I first heard this on the children's show "Curiosity Shop" in 1971, unpublished in any other work. It can only be found in a collection of works by Mr. Bradbury called "When Elephants Last In The Dooryard Bloomed: Celebrations for almost any day in the year." I waited several months to get this book from my library as it was almost unobtainable through other sources. The copyright is held by Hart-Davis, MacGibbon (1975)

The Groon

By Ray Bradbury

What is the Groon?

My young dog said.

What is the Groon;

Is it live, is it dead?

Did it fall from the Moon,

Has it arms, legs, or head?

Does it walk,

Or Shamble and amble or stalk?

Is it dust, is it fluff?

Is it snuff

For a ghost that will sneeze itself inside-out,

Then, outside-in, turnabout!?

  

Can it walk on the wall?

Will it rise, stay or fall?

Does it moan, groan, and grieve?

What tracks does it leave

When it walks in the dust

And makes prints by the light ,

By the moldy light of the moon?

 What’s the Groon?

Is it he, she, or it?

Does it sprawl, crawl, or sit?

Is it shaped like a craw or a claw or a hoof?

Does it tread like a toad in the road

Or mingle on the shingle high path

Of our roof?

There, aloof, does it tap in the night

And go down out of sight in the rain-funnel spout?

Is it strange going in,

But even more strange coming out?

 Has it shadows to spare?

Is it rare?

Does it croon for a loved one, oh,

Much like itself

In a grave or a tomb

Where it shuttles a loom,

Spins new shapes for itself

Made of moon-moss and lint,

Sparked with Indian flint

Struck from Indian graves

Where old Indian braves

Put their bones up on stilts

Where their mummy-dust silts

Join the corn-stalks in dance;

And wind off the hills

Chills wild smokes torn from roves

And the dust churned from hooves

Of ghost horses stormed by

In the middle of the night—

What a sight! What a sight!

Is this, then the Groon?

  

Is it old as the Sphinx?

Is it dreadful, methinks?

Is it Dire, is it Awe?

Does it stick in your craw?

Is it smoke or mere chaff?

Do you whimper or laugh

At this skin of a snake left to blow on the road?

Is it cool-iced hoptoad or deep midnight frog

That goes Splash! If you jump?

Does it . . . bump . . . ‘neath your bed

Near the head or the toe?

When it’s there, is it there?

When it’s gone, where’s it go?

  

What’s the Groon?

Tell me soon. . .

For the Moon’s growing older,

And the wind’s growing colder,

And the Groon? It grows larger and bolder!

And darker and stranger!

My soul is in danger!

For there creep its hands

Twitched from shadowy lands,

Reaching out now to touch

And to hold and to . . . clutch!

  

Quick, sunlight, bring Noon!

Fight shadows, fight Moon!

Give me morning, bright sun!

Then my battle is won.

For the Groon cannot fight

What is Sun, what is Light!

It will wither away

With the dawn, with the day!

But . . . !

.  .  .  come back . . . next midnight . . .

With its scare. . . and its fright. . .

Once again we will croon:

What’s the Groon!

 What’s. . . the . . . Groon . . . ?