Childhood: Poems of Innocence
If you remember
Never to forgot
The Youth
The wild hope
The dream . . .
You will forget
To remember
The wrinkles
The weariness
The short days.
P.N.
Dream Play
Where is the dream, Margaret,
Young as first light,
Gossamer given;
From what star,
From what star
Riven
Into the night:
The striped tiger that roared,
Margaret, where’s he?
Sleeping, sleeping,
Kitten past,
On what dream keeping
What could not be?
Where is the key, Margaret,
The child hid away?
Laughter remembering
Amber cup
On the shelf,
Dissembling,
Simply in play?
P.N.
On Poems of Childhood:
Like so many poets children are concerned with the philosophical problems of nature, life, death and God. The following little lines, culled from my daughter’s everyday chatter are an example of what all children ask and answer. She is speaking the language of children. I first became aware of this rhythmic pattern when, as an infant, Nikki would let loose her wails in cadences. Then before she was one year of age she would practice syllables in definite poetic pounding. “O a poet,” I thought until I discovered that other children do the same. At the age of one and a half she composed her first poem. All day long she chanted, “Apricots, pee-pee pots” and afterwards never said it again. It wasn’t until a year ago that I decided to copy down, in shorthand, her plays with words and ideas; they are repeated in the exact form in which they were spoken. There has been no editing. Most were chanted in an attempt to escape from eating, especially at breakfast when she was still in a dream-like state.
P.N.
Wish
Oh if there were only
A little bit of hole in the sky
I could go up and make the hole bigger,
I could reach through to heaven.
(4 yrs. 5 mos.)
Satellite
Mama, if I had an aeroplane
And took a little stick
And swooped the plane into the sky,
Then it would go round the world
And I’d see it every day.
(4 yrs. 9 mos.)
The Moon
You know what, Mommy?
Last night I saw a different moon,
a straight moon.
It had the insides out of it.
It was a different moon, a finger moon.
Some night when you are out,
I’ll take you up to it
And show a finger, Ciriscent moon.
(4 yrs. 9 mos.)
Comment on a Song
The moon does not belong to everyone.
The moon belongs to God.
God made the moon.
God made lots of things.
God made everything.
God even made the sun
And a little piece of sun fell out
And became the earth.
And I know this in five year old ways
Because the piano in dancing school told me.
The Rose Sun
I dreamed about the sun last night
And on it was a big spot
The spot had lots of dark and warm in it
And I had to squint and hide my eyes.
Then I dreamed another dream
that hitched onto the other dream.
There was a big ladder tall as the sky;
And I got a big stick and climbed up to the sun
And then I knocked the sun down
And made a new one.
(And was it a pretty sun?)
Yes, a bunch of roses hanging from the moon
Came down and covered the sun.
And it was a rose sun.
There were flowers in the middle
And there were flowers all around, like petals.
It was a rose sun.
(4 yrs. 6 mos.)
Tombstones
What are those, Mommy?
Way over there? What are they?
They look like little emeralds;
Aren’t they pretty:
They look like little emeralds.
There are Red Cross emeralds too.
What are they?
(5 yrs. 8 mos.)
The Printed Word
I don’t want you to write down
These words that I make up about God.
I won’t tell you anymore things about God if you do.
I don’t want God to be a poem.
I don’t want you to write the words down.
They’ll turn to paper, the word will be unhappy,
And then God will turn to paper too.
(5 yrs. 4 mos.)
Telegram — Afterthought
I am sitting in my rocking chair
when you walk through the doorway,
not even knocking.
(were you still in uniform?)
ANTWERPEN 1945 OCT 17
MRS. C. NELSON
536 WEST 114TH ST. NEW YORK
SAIL ANTWERP SEVENTEENTH
ON LIBERTY SHIP–
TAKES ABOUT TWELVE DAYS.
(NO SIG)
The others always call you Pop
but I’ve reverted to Daddy
because that’s what I first said
until it seemed too intimate.
I know we don’t communicate
and I never write about you
(Did my mother say it all?)
but that telegram is framed above my desk
because you were my beginning
of conscious memory
and I love you.
N.N.
The Fourth Dimension
Under the round Table of Time
crouches the peering child of Tomorrow,
Hand in hand with her sister Yesterday;
Both beckon tenderly to their triplet Today.
Today runs searching, seeking, probing,
Frantically talking of Past and Future,
Never seeing her sisters staring out
from under the Table of Time.
P.N.
Afterlife
It was there
Still I saw it not;
Nor did I hear
‘Til the ticking stopped;
The wonder of the clock.
P.N.
Grief
I see two small children with a coal shovel
Burying a bird in their neighbor’s back yard
Not even knowing it wasn’t their own yard
(The houses so crowded together);
The neighbor–dull, thick-necked with bloated lips
His eyes bellowing and bulging agape
Wondering What the Devil those Damn Nelsons
Were doing, yet sensing beyond obtusity
That somehow he must not intrude now.
How we wept for our frivolous, foolish pet!
N.N.
Hate
Thorns to my foe I thought I gave
But oh what an error so grave
For when I searched my heart’s pain
I found my thorns had home again.
P.N.
Victorious Joy
Oh joy cut through this block of pain
Split wide the steadfast gloom
Shatter the still grayness
And tumble out your ten thousand genes.
Let them rout the worn out rabble–
Desolate dejection, depression, defeat
And bring to birth young mirth
Daughter of a long vanished elf.
P.N.