My Poem to the Earth

It was school vacation around these parts, so my boys and I headed to "the beach house" as my two-year-old referred to it to see my mom for a couple of days. The weather was awful - cold and very wet thanks to a spring nor'easter that slowly came through - but it was a lot of fun anyway. If nothing else we (read I) were able to get away from the stress and daily routine of our reality. (That included the computer/internet which was a nice break indeed.)

Onto more exciting things . . . This is my poetry entry for the week. This poet isn't as well known as the others I have previously mentioned, but I think he's actually better.

My son was watching PBS today and they were talking about Earth Day (this Sunday) all morning. Suddenly my four-year-old turned to me and said, "Mommy, this is my poem to the Earth." And here is what he came up with:

The earth is sweet,
The earth is beautiful.
I love green trees
And playing in the backyard.
We should keep the earth clean.
I also like bugs,
I want a tarantula but Mommy says no because she doesn't like spiders.

"And that's my poem about the earth." (I know, I know. Go ahead, tell me he's a genius; a poet laureate in the making.) It does warm your heart, doesn't it?

My Man Robert Frost

To continue in highlighting National Poetry Month I thought I would share a couple of Robert Frost's poems. I think most of us are familiar with the first one (but it's just so good I couldn't help reprinting it) and the second is one I remember my father reciting to me. I think I was studying Frost at the time when he recited "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" from memory and told me how he had had to memorize it as a student some years before.

I think I remember the moment so well because my father is a man of numbers and logic - a computer programmer, an engineer, a student who associates the song "Take it to the Limit" by the Eagles with a calculus class he once took (all right, and maybe a girl, too, but he never admitted that part); he was the kid who earned his FCC license so he could use the radio he built himself - and to listen to him recite poetry, spontaneously, is just something I may never forget.

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.



Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

I realize that Frost wrote so many other poems (among them "Birches" which I love) and these are probably two of the most obvious choices. But I figured why go out of my way looking for beauty when it's already in the forefront of my mind :)

Leaving It to the Experts

Yes, April is National Poetry Month (at least over here in the States), but no, I won't be torturing anyone with any original poetry of my own ;)

Instead I have (quickly) found a couple that I like very much by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886); And I'll try to feature at least one poet per week in celebration.

From: Complete Poems. 1924.

Part One: Life
XXVII

I ’M nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there ’s a pair of us—don’t tell!
They ’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!


Part Two: Nature
LXI

A LITTLE road not made of man,
Enabled of the eye,
Accessible to thill of bee,
Or cart of butterfly.

If town it have, beyond itself,
’T is that I cannot say;
I only sigh,—no vehicle
Bears me along that way.

This Time It's Saturday with Shel

My son can't get enough of "Where the Sidewalk Ends," by Shel Silverstein. We read from it daily and one poem is never enough. I happened upon this one tonight and I feel compelled to share it. It is so complex in its simplicity; it has so many facets to it in so few words; It could mean one thing to you and another to me - and we'd both be right. That's what's so great about poetry and literature. The interpretation is up to you.

And while I watch news footage of "Black Friday" where people run (over one another) to buy televisions and video game systems, grabbing and pushing their fellow human beings as if being chased by a horrible monster (maybe they are? That one called consumerism?) that will tear them from limb from limb if they don't get out of it's path - It just makes me sad.

It makes me long for the days of childhood when I didn't know what was going on; when I knew Santa's elves were making a few toys for me so that Santa could place them under my Christmas tree; when I thought that everyone looked forward to Christmas because it meant time off from school and candy canes and sugar cookies with green and red sprinkles and ribbons and bows and brightly decorated paper - and not stress and lines longer than those found at Disney World and anger upon seeing someone else grab the last "must have" commodity of the season.

This poem makes me think of that, and so many other things that are wrong with the world right now. And yet, the last stanza gives me hope, too. The hope that is the central theme of this time of year; the hope that does not scream in your ear or beat you over the head until you get it. It's a quiet whisper in your heart that blesses you with the belief in possibility - that maybe 2007 will be different; that maybe you, and the people around you, can make a positive contribution that will change the lives of others; that maybe you can stop talking and start making a fundamental change in your own life - that maybe the world's priorities will begin to shift and people will matter more than money or power.

Then again, you may read something completely different :)

WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS

There is a place where the sidewalks ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

A Sunday with Shel

I recently purchased Shel Silverstein's "Where the Sidewalk Ends" and tonight my four-year-old and we enjoyed a couple dozen or so poems - and more than twice that many laughs. I bought the book knowing that I loved it as a kid, but I had forgotten so many of the reasons why and it was pure joy remembering.

There was good old Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout who would not take the garbage out; The Yipiyuk who latched onto my toe and would not let go; The super sensational, utterly fabulous talented Dancing Pants; A recipe for a hippopotamus sandwich; And who can forget little Peggy Ann McKay who was so sick she couldn't go to school that day - until she was told it was Saturday :)

Since I enjoyed my trip down memory lane so very much tonight I thought I would share three of my (short) favorites which I didn't necessarily remember from my youth, but instead touched my heart as an adult. Thank you, Mr. Silverstein.


LISTEN TO THE MUSTN'TS
Listen to the MUSTN'TS child
Listen to the DONT'S
Listen to the SHOULDN'TS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON'TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVES
Then listen close to me-
Anything can happen, child,
ANYTHING can be.


I WON'T HATCH!
Oh, I am a chickie who lives in an egg,
But I will not hatch, I will not hatch.
The hens they all cackle, the roosters all beg,
But I will not hatch, I will not hatch.
For I hear all the talk of pollution and war
As the people all shout and the airplanes roar,
So I'm staying in here where it's safe and it's warm,
And I WILL NOT HATCH!


ALICE
She drank from a bottle called DRINK ME
And up she grew so tall,
She ate from a plate called TASTE ME
And down she shrank so small.
And so she changed, while other folks
Never tried nothin' at all.


Have a great week . . .