Hedgehog
The snail moves like a
Hovercraft, held up by a
Rubber cushion of itself,
Sharing its secret
With the hedgehog. The hedgehog
Shares its secret with no one.
We say, Hedgehog, come out
Of yourself and we will love you.
We mean no harm. We want
Only to listen to what
You have to say. We want
Your answers to our questions.
The hedgehog gives nothing
Away, keeping itself to itself.
We wonder what a hedgehog
Has to hide, why it so distrusts.
We forget the god
under this crown of thorns.
We forget that never again
will a god trust in the world.
from 'Poems 1968-1998'
poem by Paul Muldoon
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Related quotes
The Hungry Hedgehog
By the time I returned back to our estate,
The sky was dark, and it was getting late.
I came into a large, moonlit square,
And a hungry hedgehog, I saw there.
At seeing the hedgehog, I felt such a thrill;
I stopped in my tracks, and stood stock still.
Seeing him there was quite a surprise;
For a few moments, we interlocked eyes.
He looked, as if to say ‘Why are you looking at me?
What's the big deal? There's nothing to see!
I've been a hedgehog since I was born:
For me, being a hedgehog is quite the norm! '
‘You are the one, who looks rather weird,
And you are the one, who should be feared.
I don't see your kind often: you are quite rare.
So please could you not just stand and stare? '
‘Right, well, if we're done here, then I'll be off:
I'm hungry, and am hunting for insects to scoff.'
By my intrusion, the hedgehog seemed annoyed;
Encounters with humans, they try hard to avoid.
He was otherwise engaged: he could not stay,
He soon turned tail, and then scampered away.
Seeing a hedgehog in these parts, is a rare sight:
So now, forever in my mind, I will recall that night.
poem by Angela Wybrow
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The Hedgehog and the Fox
At dusk a fox walked down the street
searching for any scraps to eat.
Across gardens and down folks’ drives,
oblivious to many peoples lives.
An adult hedgehog scurrying by
caught the watchful fox’s eye.
Being a fox it instinctively thought,
this meal was as good as caught.
It stopped and sniffed it from head to foot,
and couldn’t believe its stroke of luck.
However, a time for friendship this was not,
the wise hedgehog had sussed the plot.
Waiting on ceremony was not its style at all,
the hedgehog rolled into a ball.
A predicament not met by the fox before,
which made the creature a mite unsure.
A tentative touch here, a gentle touch there,
but this wasn’t getting it anywhere.
It touched it again then licked its paw,
this was an enigma, that’s for sure.
Taking two paces back there it sat,
wondering how to unroll it flat.
It suddenly got up and peed on the ball,
but the hedgehog never flinched at all.
From four paces away the fox sat and observed,
waiting for the hedgehog to lose its nerve.
It peed on it once more, and again sat down,
and waited for it to become unwound.
It waited and waited, and became distracted,
then like a spring the hedgehog reacted,
through the grass and over a high fence,
leaving the fox bemused by its sudden absence.
poem by Orlando Belo
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The way you want to respond is to ask a question: Is this technology directly relevant to our hedgehog concept? If the answer is YES, then we want to become pioneers, not in the technology, but in the application of that technology specifically linked to our hedgehog concept.
quote by James Collins
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Love And Be Loved
The Princess was given a gift;
she would love and be loved
her whole life long, when the
evil fairy came with her curse
to the christening, saying the
Princess would be turned out
of her kingdom; she could not
take away the gift of love
Though the curse was fulfilled,
the Princess lost her kingdom,
love went with her in the form
of a Prince turned into a Hedge-
hog who loved the Princess
more than life; the Princess
grew to love the Hedgehog
also and her kiss revealed
Her love to him, turned him back
into a Prince; all the evil fairy had
done was to make sure that the
Princess had an adventurous life,
married her true love who had laid
down his life to save hers when he
became a Hedgehog to serve…
E Nesbit - The Princess and the Hedgehog -
Abelard-Schumann 1974
poem by Margaret Alice
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The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best of all.
The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.
quote by Archilocus
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The fox knows many things; the hedgehog one big thing.
quote by Archilochus
Submitted by Simona Enache
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I'm an inveterate fox and not a hedgehog, so I always think you should try everything.
quote by Clifford Geertz
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Some persons think that they have to look like a hedgehog to be pious.
quote by Billy Sunday
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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An aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog.
quote by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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If somebody thinks they're a hedgehog, presumably you just give 'em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.
quote by Douglas Adams
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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So my answer is, YES, everyone can find a hedgehog concept. If these companies can do it, anyone can do it. And anybody who says they can't is simply whining.
quote by James Collins
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His Shield
The pin-swin or spine-swine
(the edgehog miscalled hedgehog) with all his edges out,
echidna and echinoderm in distressed-
pin-cushion thorn-fur coats, the spiny pig or porcupine,
the rhino with horned snout–
everything is battle-dressed.
Pig-fur won’t do, I’ll wrap
myself in salamander-skin like Presbyter John.
A lizard in the midst of flames, a firebrand
that is life, asbestos-eyed asbestos-eared, with tattooed nap
and permanent pig on
the instep; he can withstand
fire and won’t drown. In his
unconquerable country of unpompous gusto,
gold was so common none considered it; greed
and flattery were unknown. Though rubies large as tennis-
balls conjoined in streams so
that the mountain seemed to bleed,
the inextinguishable
salamander styled himself but presbyter. His shield
was his humility. In Carpasian
linen coat, flanked by his household lion-cubs and sable
retinue, he revealed
a formula safer than
an armorer’s: the power of relinquishing
what one would keep; that is freedom. Become dinosaur-
skulled, quilled or salamander-wooled, more ironshod
and javelin-dressed than a hedgehog battalion of steel, but be
dull. Don’t be envied or
armed with a measuring rod.
poem by Marianne Moore
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It's a pleasure in the pain
After a long hugging
A Hedgehog inquires the Rabbit;
'Darling did I hurt you? '
She said timidly bowing her head;
'It's a pleasure in the pain dear.'
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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De Critters' Dance
Ain't nobody nevah tol' you not a wo'd a-tall,
'Bout de time dat all de critters gin dey fancy ball?
Some folks tell it in a sto'y, some folks sing de rhyme,
'Peahs to me you ought to hyeahed it, case hit 's ol' ez time.
Well, de critters all was p'osp'ous, now would be de chance
Fu' to tease ol' Pa'son Hedgehog, givin' of a dance;
Case, you know, de critters' preachah was de stric'est kin',
An' he nevah made no 'lowance fu' de frisky min'.
So dey sont dey inbitations, Raccoon writ 'em all,
'Dis hyeah note is to inbite you to de Fancy Ball;
Come erlong an' bring yo' ladies, bring yo' chillun too,
Put on all yo' bibs an' tuckahs, show whut you kin do.'
W'en de night come, dey all gathahed in a place dey knowed,
Fu' enough erway f'om people, nigh enough de road,
All de critters had ersponded, Hop-Toad up to Baih,
An' I 's hyeah to tell you, Pa'son Hedgehog too, was daih.
Well, dey talked an' made dey 'bejunce, des lak critters do,
An' dey walked an' p'omenaded 'roun' an' thoo an' thoo;
Jealous ol' Mis' Fox, she whispah, 'See Mis' Wildcat daih,
Ain't hit scan'lous, huh a-comin' wid huh shouldahs baih?'
Ol' man T'utle was n't honin' fu' no dancin' tricks,
So he stayed by ol' Mis' Tu'tle, talkin' politics;
Den de ban' hit 'mence a-playin' critters all to place,
Fou' ercross an' fou' stan' sideways, smilin' face to face.
'Fessah Frog, he play de co'net, Cricket play de fife,
Slews o' Grasshoppahs a-fiddlin' lak to save dey life;
Mistah Crow, 'he call de figgers, settin' in a tree,
Huh, uh! how dose critters sasshayed was a sight to see.
Mistah Possom swing Mis' Rabbit up an' down de flo',
Ol' man Baih, he ain't so nimble, an' it mek him blow;
Raccoon dancin' wid Mis' Squ'il squeeze huh little han',
She say, 'Oh, now ain't you awful, quit it, goodness lan'!'
Pa'son Hedgehog groanin' awful at his converts' shines,
'Dough he peepin' thoo his fingahs at dem movin' lines,
'Twell he cain't set still no longah w'en de fiddles sing,
Up he jump, an' bless you, honey, cut de pigeon-wing.
Well, de critters lak to fainted jes' wid dey su'prise.
Sistah Fox, she vowed she was n't gwine to b'lieve huh eyes;
But dey could n't be no 'sputin' 'bout it any mo':
Pa'son Hedgehog was a-cape'in' all erroun' de flo.'
Den dey all jes' capahed scan'lous case dey did n't doubt,
Dat dey still could go to meetin'; who could tu'n 'em out?
So wid dancin' an' uligion, dey was in de fol',
Fu' a-dancin' wid de Pa'son couldn't hu't de soul.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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Hedgehog
I remember the days when I was in port of Salalah,
Sultanate of Oman.
I was working in Port controllers building a mountain top.
It's really interesting, you crawled in the midnight and I offered you a bowl of rice,
in gratitude you left me a spine.
Still I am holding that curious gift.
You too a Mammal and that may be the reason
why you attached to me so much.
If I build a house one day (my endless dream)
definitely I name it as 'Hedgehog'.
dedication to poet kojo Owusu
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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Nevertheless
you've seen a strawberry
that's had a struggle; yet
was, where the fragments met,
a hedgehog or a star-
fish for the multitude
of seeds. What better food
than apple seeds - the fruit
within the fruit - locked in
like counter-curved twin
hazelnuts? Frost that kills
the little rubber-plant -
leaves of kok-sagyyz-stalks, can't
harm the roots; they still grow
in frozen ground. Once where
there was a prickley-pear -
leaf clinging to a barbed wire,
a root shot down to grow
in earth two feet below;
as carrots from mandrakes
or a ram's-horn root some-
times. Victory won't come
to me unless I go
to it; a grape tendril
ties a knot in knots till
knotted thirty times - so
the bound twig that's under-
gone and over-gone, can't stir.
The weak overcomes its
menace, the strong over-
comes itself. What is there
like fortitude! What sap
went through that little thread
to make the cherry red!
poem by Marianne Moore
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Nature Trail
At the bottom of my garden
There's a hedgehog and a frog
And a lot of creepy-crawlies
Living underneath a log,
There's a baby daddy long legs
And an easy-going snail
And a family of woodlice,
All are on my nature trail.
There are caterpillars waiting
For their time to come to fly,
There are worms turning the earth over
As ladybirds fly by,
Birds will visit, cats will visit
But they always chose their time
And I've even seen a fox visit
This wild garden of mine.
Squirrels come to nick my nuts
And busy bees come buzzing
And when the night time comes
Sometimes some dragonflies come humming,
My garden mice are very shy
And I've seen bats that growl
And in my garden I have seen
A very wise old owl.
My garden is a lively place
There's always something happening,
There's this constant search for food
And then there's all that flowering,
When you have a garden
You will never be alone
And I believe we all deserve
A garden of our own.
poem by Benjamin Zephaniah
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The Sorrow of A Hedgehog
I hear a deep mourn of pain
It's from a hedgehog's vein
For it is prevented feom action
Its reason kills its passion
It knows its poking thornes
That reason stunns its bones
Though it wishes to cherish
A little dreams in a cradle
It fears the fate and perish
Often fall on it as a saddle
Can it embrace a virgin's bower
If he cares it as a pretty flower
It fears the wound of love
Which the fate may given to a dove
It is all love and love only
In tender and gentle kept its soul
I hear the cry again and again
But it knows it's in vein
poem by Niranjan Subhashsivan
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A Molested Porcupine On My Head
Regarding the daily disintegration of my bad haircut
in awed astonishment, the moth-eaten ends forming
the outline of a badly battered mop
No amount of hair-spray, coaxing and determined blow-
waving can save the mutilated hair from resembling a
molested porcupine nestling on my head
Even greater my fascinated discovery that hubby thinks my
hair looks good, I made five backward somersaults in my
shock at his heresy, how strange the world
That he should like my Last-Of-The-Mohicans outline today,
I suppose I’m not a crocodile any more, more an electrified
hedgehog from now on...
poem by Margaret Alice
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