Walking With My Three-Year-Old Grandson

 

I place my feet with care

in such a world.

    William Stafford, "The Well Rising"

 

 

And all that day

Was a fairy tale

Told once in awhile

To a good child.

     Donald Justice, "Song"

 

 

Already too old to hold my hand, you let me

Follow you along the edge of the pond, green

With algae and weeds that you fish with a stick,

Pulling them in and casting them out again,

As though you knew without my telling you

How in the woods we must always replace

What we disturb, leaving the way we've come

For others to make their own way of coming,

Even if it means losing ourselves for while,

How going on will bring us to another way

Of returning to where we began.   

                                                    

                                                             So many

Lines of so many poems come to mind now

And I want to tell you how after it rains

And these maple seeds fall into puddles

They look like the tadpoles you are trying

To catch in the cup of your hand, and then

You look up to where the late sun is settling

Into one low cloud and you take my hand

And say "Look there PaPa!  It's a volcano!"

And as I look, more at you than the cloud,

I see there's nothing more I can teach you

Of poetry, you already know how it happens.





Poetry by countryfog
Read 623 times
Written on 2013-06-11 at 18:13

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Lawrence Beck The PoetBay support member heart!
Beautifully written, as always, Fog, especially the first stanza. Your task is to keep the young man capable of making such associations. Don't let him abandon them in favor of the arid logic of the spreadsheet.
2013-06-17


Rob Graber
A wonderful write, reminding me very much of what I admire in the poetry of A. R. Ammons.
2013-06-13



The magnitude of the last two lines is huge. What do we do as we mature and face the world but lose the poetry? Even those of us who write cannot match those words of innocence and wonder. My daughter, when she was very little, while walking along our country road observed,

"The dog's tail touched the Blazing Star."

Try as I might I could never come up with a line to match that.

I may never have grandchildren, but I identify with your sentiment, and whether it is a grandchild or child, those feelings are singular.

One of my favorite poems is this by James Joyce:

On the Beach at Fontana

Wind whines and whines the shingle,
The crazy pierstakes groan;
A senile sea numbers each single
Slimesilvered stone.

From whining wind and colder
Grey sea I wrap him warm
And touch his trembling fineboned shoulder
And boyish arm.

Around us fear, descending
Darkness of fear above
And in my heart how deep unending
Ache of love!

—

You've touched a chord here, my friend.
2013-06-12



One of my favorites of yours. I always maintained that Wordsworth had it right: 'The child is father to the man.'

A child can look at a cloud and has no qualms about insisting it's really volcano ash. As adults we see exactly the same thing and make the same connections, but are only allowed to express it in the confines of poetry. The child LIVES poetry.

Very moving, and I have a feeling your grandson is going to be a poet!
2013-06-11


Elle The PoetBay support member heart!
This made me think of my boys when they were small, I remember teaching the boys how to shrimp etc and how not to rough up the sand - I would watch them teetering, toes digging into the sand as they watched mine - thanks for sharing precious memories that give others precious memories

Elle
2013-06-11


josephus The PoetBay support member heart!
There is no more heart felt moment than the one you describe my friend. And you do it so well you leave me with tears of emotions past and yet to come. This one I will read again and again and sigh.
2013-06-11