Monday, April 04, 2011

On, In, and Around Mondays: Come Away

Rachel and the Angels

It is rainy this morning, and a big blue book of poems sits on the table. My girls and I have been reading together, just like we did last year, a poem a day for National Poetry Month.

I'm not sure how it came together, but somehow we've landed on Yeats and all things Irish.

I have read Yeats before, was required to in college, but I didn't read him like this. The section begins with a poem called "The Stolen Child" and I can hardly get the words out to my children...

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild,
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.


My girls and I talk about this (me holding back tears). We talk about how there is a little bit of faery in every parent who wishes to shelter a child, to keep the child a forever-child. We talk about the end of the poem, where the stolen child goes away with the faeries, only to miss...

the calves on the warm hillside
or the kettle on the hob


It is a conversation for both of us— me and my girls: They, sometimes afraid to grow, preferring to be stolen away to the place where...

to and fro we leap
and chase the frothy bubbles
while the world is full of troubles


Me, wanting my girls to live in the place full of berries/And of reddest stolen cherries.

I touch the blue book of poems this morning, think of how my Eldest went off after the reading, to begin her own story of an Aisling who loses her blue ball in a stream pool and asks three children to help her retrieve it. They do, and in thanks she says, "I will give you a song."

She sat cross-legged on the ground with the ball on her lap and started to sing. She did not use words but an eerie wordless melody that seemed to fill the air and the stream...It was unbearably beautiful.

And I am still holding back tears.

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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.

If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

On In Around button




This post is also shared with Laura Boggess, for...



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12 Comments:

Blogger David Rupert said...

Oh to keep the children young and innocent, shielded from this world!

I share your longing, and yet, begrudgingly, realize that's just not the plan.

So we enjoy those days of innocence and bask in them...

9:41 AM  
Blogger SimplyDarlene said...

L.L., you have done more than taught poetry, you have instilled beauty. And that is a gift worthy of unwrapping time and again.

Blessings.

10:35 AM  
Blogger Laura said...

This morning I signed a permission slip for my youngest to go on the class trip with his mates. Last night I dreamed that we were together in a crowd and became separated. I awakened early, in a panic. It was with trembling hands I signed that paper this morning. I know I can't protect him from everything, but...can't I?

This is beautiful and so are you.

10:50 AM  
Blogger tamarahillmurphy.com said...

totally and wonderfully lovely, this post

11:19 AM  
Blogger Shaunie @ Up the Sunbeam said...

I can't find it, but my mom always quotes a poem wherein the author is always a little sad to see a "colt become a horse." It's a very familiar state of heart for parents for sure. Beautifully written L.L. You and I have something else in common today too--we both featured our daughters' writing in our blog posts today--such blessing in reading the words of both our girls!

11:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

there is childhood
in the air
in the care
that will go with them

12:39 PM  
Blogger Linda said...

My eyes are blurry and you take me back to a moment in time when I wished with all my heart I could freeze my little boys in that moment of time. I sometimes still long for those days, and in these grown men (with children of their own) I see those little boys.

2:13 PM  
Blogger Maureen said...

If every child had a big blue book
of poems and a mother who took
time for Yeats on a rainy day,
to listen to stories, to what they say
about love becoming love.

5:01 PM  
Blogger Bonnie said...

I had tears too reading that poem and your words. Thank you for inspiring me with aisling! I need to pass this on to some lovers of fairytales also!

5:48 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Did you see the comment I left at Friday Check In... my weekend was in Yeats' birthplace (Co Sligo).

I wish that you were my poetry teacher. I would have grown a steady love for it much sooner.

I also thought of you today and the in and around Mondays when our neighbours little boy locked himelf into the car and spent a solid hour honking away at the horn. I was very aware of my surroundings because of this little creature.

7:03 PM  
Blogger Megan Willome said...

Oh, I feel this!
But now I'm the one who wants to take the fsiry's hand, and my daughter wants to grow up and go to the city.

8:57 PM  
Blogger Louise said...

We don't have poetry month here in the UK, but I think reading poetry with your girls every day is a wonderful thing to do and I love that it has inspired your eldest to write.
Cultivating the closeness to talk about deep things with your children is so precious.

4:24 AM  

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