Sending poetry to the world
Wake up! Wake Up! There is so much
To do! Watch the trees, flush with green,
How they open their sun catchers
And breathe just like us. There are ripples to create and
Secret worms to unearth.
Come, test this messy black dirt
With your bare feet and count the many
Grains of light on your tongue.
Wake up now, small one, and find your life in the dawn.
The small house, very much alive,
Wonders if we all are bent,
On making life some sort of game
And looks on with a deep content
At bicycles and bathing suits,
Bats and roller skates,
Bobby-socks and dungarees
And diaries and dates —
First tuxedo to appraise,
Bow tie to approve,
Clothes discarded on the floor
Everywhere I move —
High school year books, trophies won,
Commencement and a formal prom,
Phone bell or a door bell’s ring,
“Is it Jack or Bill or Tom?”
Corsages using up the space
That always was reserved
For more important things – like food –
For dinner to be served.
It seems to say, “Dull moments where
Life lifts its restless wing?
Peace is found in homes where youth
Knows no journeying.”
[taken from Where Childern Live (1958) by my great-grandmother Alice B. Johnson]
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