Children

Arctic tundra,
Arctic tundra,
How does your garden grow?
With lupine seeds
And fireweeds
And bearberries …

"Snug as a bug in a hug,"
says Gran, like she always does,
and laughs down my neck
with her smoky-mint …

I pass between lions
guarding what's inside:
bound gems to open,
endless words that sparkle.
I read till…

Something will change every day.
I moved six times. I felt like I was traveling.
But something will …

Gazing at the sky, all cloud-strewn
A child wonders, Where’s my moon?

Child cries a river like a monsoon…

1 berry-stained month of summer
1 grandmother
2 cups flour
½ cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
½…

I saw thousands of pumpkins last night
come floating in on the tide,
bumping up against the rocks and
rolling…

I don’t like similes.Every time I try to think of onemy brain feels like a vast, empty desert;my eyes…

Brown and furry
Caterpillar in a hurry,
Take your walk
To the shady leaf, or stalk,
Or what not,
Which…

Hush thee and sleep, little one, 
     The feathers on thy board sway to and fro; 
The shadows reach far downward…

make
this world
a whole lot
brighter

when
I
grow up
I'll
be
a writer.
I'll
write about
some things
I know—

                    how to bunt
                    how to throw . . .

           ...

The mountain and the squirrel  
Had a quarrel;  
And the former called the latter ‘Little Prig.’
Bun replied,  
‘You are doubtless very big;         
But all sorts of things and weather  
Must be taken in together,  
To make up a year  
And a sphere.  
And I think it no disgrace  
To...

I always like summer
best
you can eat fresh corn
from daddy's garden
and okra...

For someone to read a poem
again, and again, and then,

having lifted it from page
to brain—the easy part—

cradle it on the longer trek
from brain all the way to heart.

My sister found them.
 
Read them out loud.
She’s so proud,
 
she’s running to our parents
waving my poems in the air.
 
Doesn’t she know 
she’s waving my underwear?

The best clouds in the business
          are right above me
right now.

We’re riding in this teal convertible
          those clouds just dozing
          in about forty-nine different shapes
       ...