Sunday, November 10, 2013

Sunday Morning Poetry


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
still 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 fences 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

Happy weekend, friends.

4 comments:

Jeanne said...

Beautiful verse and I love the photograph too. So precious

Marilyn Miller said...

Oh yes, so true!
I see the world in
a different way, as
I watch my little guy
move and grow.

HKatz said...

"the roots of the tiniest grasses curl toward one another
like secret smiles"

There's so much love in those lines (and in the poem as a whole). Thanks for sharing.

Jennifer Richardson said...

those are just the most
delicious words.....so much thanks
for the joy they bring,
Jennifer

Oldies, but Goodies