Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Where Children Live- Naomi Shihab Nye

photo by: hamley
"Where Children Live" by Noami Shihab Nye
Homes where children 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 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.

1 comment:

  1. When I first read this poem I thought about my childhood, and how I used to spend hours playing in the yard. Finding a new plant or fruit in our trees seemed so exciting. I think the best part about this poem is how it describes the innocence of the children. The grown-ups seem to want to stay inside and control everything, while the children want to be outside playing, yelling, and enjoy nature.
    I like your choice of colors and the picture you choose for the poem. I think they fit very well. It is also very easy to read because of the colors you used.

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