Read to me, Mommie....

There were lots of things I loved to do as a little kid that I almost remember -




...fishing was one, and being read to was another. I remember many trips to the library with my mother, coming home with arm fulls of books, and being read too.

And one of the books I still remember her reading to me is A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Lewis Stevenson.


Of course it was not this particular book. I got this one from the library a few days ago while I was camped out there, thinking about what to write about my mother, and working on the laptop because a severe thunderstorm took out the power.

Thumbing through this book is like turning the clock back.... back.... back.... the memories....

At the Seaside....

When I was down beside the sea
A wooden spade they gave to me
To dig the sandy shore...

I am told that among the first words I spoke were "Ocean water, go beachy."

Where Go the Boats?

Dark brown the river,
Golden is the sand
It flows along forever
With trees on either hand...

I remember making walnut shell boats and floating them in the gutters on rainy days...

The Swing

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

My uncle, who is holding me in this picture taken with my mom, had made an amazing swing from ropes.



I remember swinging in that... up, up up.... And seeing that fence behind them reminds me of the time I was climbing on the fence and I got a huge splinter -- a skewer -- in my leg. My mom was so calm and cool and collected as she pulled the spike out of my leg and doctored me. I wonder if I would have been so calm had my son come in with something like that.

The Land of Counterpane...

I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow hill
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane...

I was seldom sick, as the child described in the poem, but I remember making hills and valleys of my blankets on summer afternoons when my mother insisted that I take a nap, but I was stubborn and refused to fall asleep...

My Shadow

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me;
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see...

Who has not had fun playing with their shadow?

It almost broke my heart when I turned to the back of the book and saw that the last time this book was taken out was in 2004!!! Why are not the mothers reading these lovely, lovely poems to their little children?


Happy Mother's Day to you dear mother.