POETRY TIME AGAIN

It's Poem in Your Pocket day! And I'm in the mood for A.A.Milne. He is probably my all time favorite poet to be honest. He wrote for children, but the Pooh books and When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six are such a delight, because adults can enjoy them too.

Please indulge me. I just love these poems.



Spring Morning

Where am I going? I don't quite know.
Down to the stream where the king-cups grow -
Up on the hill where the pine trees blow -
anywhere, anywhere. I don't know.

Where am I going? The clouds sail by,
Little ones, baby ones, over the sky.
Where am I going? The shadows pass,
Little ones, baby ones, over the grass.

If you were a cloud, and sailed up there,
You'd sail on water as blue as air,
And you'd see me here in the fields and say:
"Doesn't the sky look green to-day?"

Where am I going? The high rooks call:
"It's awful fun to be born at all."
Where am I going? The ring-doves coo:
"We do have beautiful things to do."

If you were a bird, and lived on high,
You'd lean on the wind when the wind came by,
You'd say to the wind when it took you away:
"That's where I wanted to go to-day!"

Where am I going? I don't quite know.
What does it matter where people go?
Down to the wood where the blue-bells grow -
Anywhere, anywhere. I don't know.


The next to last verse in that gets me every time.


My passion for Milne came back to me the other day when I read Amanda's post about celebrating her little boy's sixth birthday. She accompanied it with a picture for each year of his young life, and with each picture a line from Milne:

When I was one, I'd just begun.
When I was two, I was nearly new.
When I was three, I was hardly me.
When I was four, I was not much more.
When I was five, I was just alive.
But now I am six, and clever as clever,
So I think I'll stay six now forever and ever.


Please forgive if I have made a mistake in a word or two; I don't have the book in front of me.

Poetry is such a wonderful thing to share with a child. And it is Poem in Your Pocket day.