I can't say that poetry is my 'thing'. There may be one or two pieces that I like. But today I have read two poems, both of which have found their way into that part of my brain labelled 'Things to Keep Forever'.
The first one, which is untitled, was written by a young man named Johnnie, who died three years ago in a tragic accident, aged only 17. As a young child he was clearly very bright but struggled in school and was later to be diagnosed as dyspraxic. It was not until about a year after the death of his sister Anna, from cystic fibrosis (a condition also suffered by his other sister), that his talent for poetry was discovered. He was about 7 at the time and started to write poetry in his school books. The poem that made its mark on me is untitled and he wrote it when he was 11:
I have nevar seen a flower cry
Or see a wild thing give up but try and try again
until they have done what they set out to do.
Or seen an animal feel sorry for itself.
I have nevar seen a flower consider how un-fair life is.
I've nevar seen a animal look scared or daunted.
So prehaps man should try to bace part of his soul on a animal.
Prehaps, but he nevar will
(spellings and grammar original)
Or see a wild thing give up but try and try again
until they have done what they set out to do.
Or seen an animal feel sorry for itself.
I have nevar seen a flower consider how un-fair life is.
I've nevar seen a animal look scared or daunted.
So prehaps man should try to bace part of his soul on a animal.
Prehaps, but he nevar will
(spellings and grammar original)
The book (published by Constable Robinson) is now available from bookshops or by post from Peta Nightingale, 32 Holly Grove, London SE15 5DF (£10, £3 postage - cheques payable to The Anna Trust). Proceeds go to research into cystic fibrosis.
The other is this:
I like the generosity of numbers.
The way, for example,
they are willing to count
anything or anyone:
two pickles, one door to the room,
eight dancers dressed as swans.
I like the domesticity of addition--
add two cups of milk and stir--
the sense of plenty: six plums
on the ground, three more
falling from the tree.
And multiplication's school
of fish times fish,
whose silver bodies breed
beneath the shadow
of a boat.
Even subtraction is never loss,
just addition somewhere else:
five sparrows take away two,
the two in someone else's
garden now.
There's an amplitude to long division,
as it opens Chinese take-out
box by paper box,
inside every folded cookie
a new fortune.
And I never fail to be surprised
by the gift of an odd remainder,
footloose at the end:
forty-seven divided by eleven equals four,
with three remaining.
Three boys beyond their mothers' call,
two Italians off to the sea,
one sock that isn't anywhere you look.
The other is this:
Numbers
Mary Cornish
The way, for example,
they are willing to count
anything or anyone:
two pickles, one door to the room,
eight dancers dressed as swans.
I like the domesticity of addition--
add two cups of milk and stir--
the sense of plenty: six plums
on the ground, three more
falling from the tree.
And multiplication's school
of fish times fish,
whose silver bodies breed
beneath the shadow
of a boat.
Even subtraction is never loss,
just addition somewhere else:
five sparrows take away two,
the two in someone else's
garden now.
There's an amplitude to long division,
as it opens Chinese take-out
box by paper box,
inside every folded cookie
a new fortune.
And I never fail to be surprised
by the gift of an odd remainder,
footloose at the end:
forty-seven divided by eleven equals four,
with three remaining.
Three boys beyond their mothers' call,
two Italians off to the sea,
one sock that isn't anywhere you look.
For this and more fascinating stuff go and visit Andree here.
