Quote of the Day

1.09.2009

Friday Poetry Where Children Live by Naomi Shihab Nye

I am teaching World Literature this quarter for Washington State Community Colleges. I've not taught this before and am having a lovely time reading the anthology and selecting the readings for the quarter. Here is one of my recent finds, which appeals to me both as teacher and mother.



Where Children Live

Homes where children live exude a pleasant rumpledness,
like a bed made by a child, or a yard littered with balloons.
To be a child again one would need to shed details
till the heart found itself dressed in the coat with a hood.
Now the heart has taken on gloves and mufflers,
the heart never goes outside to find something to do.
And the house takes on a new face, dignified.
No lost shoes blooming under bushes.
No chipped trucks in the drive.
Grown-ups like swings, leafy plants, slow-motion back and forth.
While the yard of a child is strewn with the corpses
of bottle-rockets and whistles,
anything whizzing and spectacular, brilliantly short-lived.
Trees in children's yards speak in clearer tongues.
Ants have more hope. Squirrels dance as well as hide.
The fence has a reason to be there, so children can go in and out.
Even when the children are at school, the yards glow
with the leftovers of their affection,
the roots of the tiniest grasses curl toward one another
like secret smiles.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye


Here is the coding if you want a button with a link to this week's round-up.
:: this post is part of the Friday Poetry roundup hosted by Picture Book of the Day.

Yours in pleasant rumpledness (wouldn't that be a great blog name?),
~Suzanne


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