Childhood Poems

When my children were small, we spent hours reading children's poetry. Now that they have grown and we no longer read those simple rhymes, the lines of those poems still float through my mind. When I need to find a place to sit and think I still sit

Halfway Down

Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair
Where I sit.
There isn't any
Other stair
Quite like
It.
I'm not at the bottom,
I'm not at the top;
So this is the stair
Where
I always
Stop.

Halfway up the stairs
Isn't up,
And isn't down.
It isn't in the nursery,
It isn't in the town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run around my head:
"It isn't really
Anywhere!
It's somewhere else
Instead!"
----A.A. Milne

And who can sit by the fire on a damp November day without thinking:

The Mist and All

I like the fall,
The mist and all.
I like the night owl's
Lonely call--
And wailing sound
Of wind around.

I like the gray
November day,
And bare dead boughs
That coldly sway
Against my pane.
I like the rain.

I like to sit
And laugh at it--
And tend
My cozy fire a bit.
I like the fall--
The mist and all.
--Dixie Willson

In honor of those poets who every child needs to meet, I add a little poem of my own. Slim chance that any of mine will find place in the Childcraft Poems of Early Childhood, but here it is, all the same:

Kitty

I went up to my room today
And curled up in my chair;
I planned to read my Bible
And say my daily prayers.

My kitty came to sit with me;
He curled up on my lap;
I scratched his chin
And cuddled him,
And then he took a nap.

Each time my kitty sits on me,
he purrs and purrs and purrs;
He's sweet and irresistible,
A fuzzy ball of fur.

Oh children without kitty cats
Miss out on something dear!
When I was small, I loved Fuzz Ball
And on him wiped my tears.

Someday when I am old and gray
Still here, not called above,
I'll have a soft companion,
A little friend to love.
--Jean in Wisconsin