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Poems by Children

Human beings ask questions. We look at the world and it’s full of mystery, and that deep human part of us – the part that shaped the way we grew in our mother’s womb, and that moved us to wave our arms and legs, crawl, stand, walk and talk – moves us to ask questions so that we can find some understanding. For little children it may not matter if the answers are “true” or not, only that somehow they make sense.

Very often stories about the origin of things begin as comparisons, or metaphors. There’s some  big mysterious thing out or up there  - clouds, for example, or earthquakes, or the sun - and we want to know how it came to be there, how it started. We may think of something that’s quite familiar in our lives and compare it to this big, mysterious thing. You might think that the stars, for example, are like sparks from a fire. So then you might ask yourself: “How did the sparks get from the fire into the sky?” And you might answer: “The wind blew them up there,” and you have a story:

One dark night a man was resting

on his long journey home

and he lit a big fire to keep warm

and to scare away the wild animals.

Then a great wind came

and blew thousands of sparks

into the dark sky

and they became stars.


 

The rainbow comes                      

from the angels’ workshop            

once they left it open                    

and all the animals spilled everything   

Seven different colors                 

curved into beauty                                

and everyone loved it

- Jennifer