Against Writing about Children

Related poetry:

1. Good and Bad Children Children, you are very little, And your bones are very brittle; If you would grow great and stately, You must try to walk sedately. You must still be bright and quiet, And content with simple diet; And remain, through all bewild’ring, Innocent and honest children. Happy hearts and happy faces, Happy play in grassy places […]...
2. Kinderhymne (Children's Hymn) [original] Anmut sparet nicht noch Mьhe Leidenschaft nicht noch Verstand DaЯ ein gutes Deutschland blьhe Wie ein andres gutes Land DaЯ die Vцlker nicht erbleichen Wie vor einer Rдuberin Sondern ihre Hдnde reichen Uns wie andern Vцlkern hin. Und nicht ьber und nicht unter Andern Vцlkern wolln wir sein Von der See bis zu den […]...
3. Picture-Writing In those days said Hiawatha, “Lo! how all things fade and perish! From the memory of the old men Pass away the great traditions, The achievements of the warriors, The adventures of the hunters, All the wisdom of the Medas, All the craft of the Wabenos, All the marvellous dreams and visions Of the Jossakeeds, […]...
4. Sonnet XXII: With Fools and Children To Folly With fools and children, good discretion bears; Then, honest people, bear with Love and me, Nor older yet, nor wiser made by years, Amongst the rest of fools and children be; Love, still a baby, plays with gauds and toys, And, like a wanton, sports with every feather, And idiots still are running […]...
5. Other Children “Little child of my five senses And of my tenderness.” Let us cradle our loves, We will have good children. Well cared for, We will fear nothing on earth, Happiness, good fortune, prudence, Our loves And this leap from age to age, From the order of a child to that of an old man, Will […]...
6. The Cry Of The Children Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, And that cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, The young birds are chirping in the nest, The young fawns are playing with the shadows, The […]...
7. The Dream of the Children THE CHILDREN awoke in their dreaming While earth lay dewy and still: They followed the rill in its gleaming To the heart-light of the hill. Its sounds and sights were forsaking The world as they faded in sleep, When they heard a music breaking Out from the heart-light deep. It ran where the rill in […]...
8. The Children The children are all crying in their pens And the surf carries their cries away. They are old men who have seen too much, Their mouths are full of dirty clothes, The tongues poverty, tears like puss. The surf pushes their cries back. Listen. They are bewitched. They are writing down their life On the […]...
9. Among School Children I I walk through the long schoolroom questioning; A kind old nun in a white hood replies; The children learn to cipher and to sing, To study reading-books and histories, To cut and sew, be neat in everything In the best modern way – the children’s eyes In momentary wonder stare upon A sixty-year-old smiling […]...
10. Prayer for Children Gracious Lord, our children see, By Thy mercy we are free; But shall these, alas! remain Subjects still of Satan’s reign? Israel’s young ones, when of old Pharaoh threaten’d to withhold, Then Thy messenger said, “No; Let the children also go!” When the angel of the Lord, Drawing forth his dreadful sword, Slew with an […]...
11. Good-Children Street There’s a dear little home in Good-Children street – My heart turneth fondly to-day Where tinkle of tongues and patter of feet Make sweetest of music at play; Where the sunshine of love illumines each face And warms every heart in that old-fashioned place. For dear little children go romping about With dollies and tin […]...
12. Deaf Martha Poor Martha is old, and her hair is turn’d grey, And her hearing has left her for many a year; Ten to one if she knows what it is that you say, Though she puts her poor wither’d hand close to her ear. I’ve seen naughty children run after her fast, And cry, “Martha, run, […]...
13. The Return of the Children “They” Traffics and Discoveries Neither the harps nor the crowns amused, nor the cherubs’ dove-winged races Holding hands forlornly the Children wandered beneath the Dome, Plucking the splendid robes of the passers-by, and with pitiful! faces Begging what Princes and Powers refused: “Ah, please will you let us go home?” Over the jewelled floor, nigh […]...
14. Children Come to me, O ye children! For I hear you at your play, And the questions that perplexed me Have vanished quite away. Ye open the eastern windows, That look towards the sun, Where thoughts are singing swallows And the brooks of morning run. In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine, In your […]...
15. The Ballad Of The Children Of The Czar 1 The children of the Czar Played with a bouncing ball In the May morning, in the Czar’s garden, Tossing it back and forth. It fell among the flowerbeds Or fled to the north gate. A daylight moon hung up In the Western sky, bald white. Like Papa’s face, said Sister, Hurling the white ball […]...
16. Warning to Children Children, if you dare to think Of the greatness, rareness, muchness Fewness of this precious only Endless world in which you say You live, you think of things like this: Blocks of slate enclosing dappled Red and green, enclosing tawny Yellow nets, enclosing white And black acres of dominoes, Where a neat brown paper parcel […]...
17. TO BRENDA WILLIAMS 'WRITING AGAINST THE GRAIN&#039 It was Karl Shapiro who wrote in his ‘Defence of Ignorance’ how many poets Go mad or seem to be so and the majority think we should all be in jail Or mental hospital and you have ended up in both places – fragile as bone china, Your pale skin taut, your fingers clasped tight […]...
18. Children Selecting Books In A Library With beasts and gods, above, the wall is bright. The child’s head, bent to the book-colored shelves, Is slow and sidelong and food-gathering, Moving in blind grace… yet from the mural, Care The grey-eyed one, fishing the morning mist, Seizes the baby hero by the hair And whispers, in the tongue of gods and children, […]...
19. The Poor Children Take heed of this small child of earth; He is great; he hath in him God most high. Children before their fleshly birth Are lights alive in the blue sky. In our light bitter world of wrong They come; God gives us them awhile. His speech is in their stammering tongue, And his forgiveness in […]...
20. God Has Pity On Kindergarten Children God has pity on kindergarten children, He pities school children less. But adults he pities not at all. He abandons them, And sometimes they have to crawl on all fours In the scorching sand To reach the dressing station, Streaming with blood. But perhaps He will have pity on those who love truly And take […]...
21. A Field of Stubble, lying sere A Field of Stubble, lying sere Beneath the second Sun Its Toils to Brindled People thrust Its Triumphs to the Bin Accosted by a timid Bird Irresolute of Alms Is often seen but seldom felt, On our New England Farms...
22. The Children of the Night For those that never know the light, The darkness is a sullen thing; And they, the Children of the Night, Seem lost in Fortune’s winnowing. But some are strong and some are weak, And there’s the story. House and home Are shut from countless hearts that seek World-refuge that will never come. And if there […]...
23. Baseball and Writing Fanaticism? No. Writing is exciting And baseball is like writing. You can never tell with either How it will go Or what you will do; Generating excitement A fever in the victim Pitcher, catcher, fielder, batter. Victim in what category? Owlman watching from the press box? To whom does it apply? Who is excited? Might […]...
24. As Children bid the Guest "Good Night&quot As Children bid the Guest “Good Night” And then reluctant turn My flowers raise their pretty lips Then put their nightgowns on. As children caper when they wake Merry that it is Morn My flowers from a hundred cribs Will peep, and prance again....
25. The Children of Lir Out upon the sand-dunes thrive the coarse long grasses; Herons standing knee-deep in the brackish pool; Overhead the sunset fire and flame amasses And the moon to eastward rises pale and cool. Rose and green around her, silver-gray and pearly, Chequered with the black rooks flying home to bed; For, to wake at daybreak, birds […]...
26. When the Children Come Home On a lonely selection far out in the West An old woman works all the day without rest, And she croons, as she toils ‘neath the sky’s glassy dome, ‘Sure I’ll keep the ould place till the childer come home.’ She mends all the fences, she grubs, and she ploughs, She drives the old horse […]...
27. Squatter's Children On the unbreathing sides of hills They play, a specklike girl and boy, Alone, but near a specklike house. The Sun’s suspended eye Blinks casually, and then they wade Gigantic waves of light and shade. A dancing yellow spot, a pup, Attends them. Clouds are piling up; A storm piles up behind the house. The […]...
28. Among Children I walk among the rows of bowed heads The children are sleeping through fourth grade So as to be ready for what is ahead, The monumental boredom of junior high And the rush forward tearing their wings Loose and turning their eyes forever inward. These are the children of Flint, their fathers Work at the […]...
29. Two Children Two children (small), one Four, one Five, Once saw a bee go in a hive, They’d never seen a bee before! So waited there to see some more. And sure enough along they came A dozen bees (and all the same!) Within the hive they buzzed about; Then, one by one, they all flew out. […]...
30. The Conversation Of Prayer The conversation of prayers about to be said By the child going to bed and the man on the stairs Who climbs to his dying love in her high room, The one not caring to whom in his sleep he will move And the other full of tears that she will be dead, Turns in […]...
31. The Future The future: time’s excuse To frighten us; too vast A project, too large a morsel For the heart’s mouth. Future, who won’t wait for you? Everyone is going there. It suffices you to deepen The absence that we are....
32. An Arab Shepherd Is Searching For His Goat On Mount Zion An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mount Zion And on the opposite hill I am searching for my little boy. An Arab shepherd and a Jewish father Both in their temporary failure. Our two voices met above The Sultan’s Pool in the valley between us. Neither of us wants the boy or […]...
33. Home, My Little Children, Hear Are Songs For You COME, my little children, here are songs for you; Some are short and some are long, and all, all are new. You must learn to sing them very small and clear, Very true to time and tune and pleasing to the ear. Mark the note that rises, mark the notes that fall, Mark the time […]...
34. Two Children Give me your hand, oh little one! Like children be we two; Yet I am old, my day is done That barely breaks for you. A baby-basket hard you hold, With in it cherries four: You cherish them as men do gold, And count them o’er. And then you stumble in your walk; The cherries […]...
35. What Do You Do About Dry Periods In Your Writing? When the writing is going well, I am a prince in a desert palace, Fountains flowing in the garden. I lean an elbow on a velvet pillow And drink from a silver goblet, Poems like a banquet Spread before me on rugs With rosettes the damask of blood. But exiled From the palace, I wander […]...
36. Writing A man who keeps a diary, pays Due toll to many tedious days; But life becomes eventful then His busy hand forgets the pen. Most books, indeed, are records less Of fulness than of emptiness....
37. Song To Be Sung by the Father of Infant Female Children My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky; Contrariwise, my blood runs cold When little boys go by. For little boys as little boys, No special hate I carry, But now and then they grow to men, And when they do, they marry. No matter how they tarry, Eventually they marry. […]...
38. From The Frontier Of Writing The tightness and the nilness round that space When the car stops in the road, the troops inspect Its make and number and, as one bends his face Towards your window, you catch sight of more On a hill beyond, eyeing with intent Down cradled guns that hold you under cover And everything is pure […]...
39. Writing often it is the only Thing Between you and Impossibility. No drink, No woman’s love, No wealth Can Match it. Nothing can save You Except Writing. It keeps the walls From Failing. The hordes from Closing in. It blasts the Darkness. Writing is the Ultimate Psychiatrist, The kindliest God of all the Gods. Writing stalks […]...
40. Children of Lir WE woke from our sleep in the bosom where cradled together we lay: The love of the dark hidden Father went with us upon our way. And gay was the breath in our being, and never a sorrow or fear Was on us as, singing together, we flew from the infinite Lir. Through nights lit […]...