Poetry to know your child
Aruna Raghavan
We are all
Pygmalions. We like to make, remake, put our heads to a side, shake it and re remake our children. The perfect child is
always the neighbours until it lives with us for a week! If our child loves the
rain, then we like dry weather; if our child loves to feel the squelch of freshly watered
garden then we like the clean cemented drive way; if we like to drink from the cup he
likes to watch the bubble disappear as he slurps from the saucer. In short, our children
are a trial to us. Luckily, nobody asks a kid who his trial is. No wonder too. Because, even if not willingly, out
of obedience he walks on the cement, but neither for fun nor for love do we ever walk on
squelchy mud.
In class,
recently, we had the chance of doing a very different poem.
I meant to do
my work today
But a brown
bird sang in the apple tree,
And a
butterfly flitted across the field,
And all the
leaves were calling me.
And the wind
went sighing over the land,
Tossing the
grasses to and fro,
And a rainbow
held out its shining hand-
So, what
could I do but laugh and go?
The poem is
by Richard LeGallienne.
We did an
appreciation of the poem. We did simple questions like : what time of day was
it? What time of year did they think it was? Could the poet see the apple tree? how did
they know? Then to trigger their own imagination they were asked to close their eyes and
describe the room in which the poet sat at work.. Amazing how much open, airy and bright
the room looked. They could describe the shape of the table [not too big, quite cluttered
with paper and manuscripts], the curtains with large bright flowers ... There was an
argument whether it would be a typewriter or a computer on the poets table. To have
them analyse, they were asked what kind of scene came before their eyes? Was it the
country side or a city or a suburb? There followed a long discussion with so many points
to substantiate their theory.
Then to more
personal questions : Did the poet feel any guilt in putting aside his work? Has he done it
before? How do they know? Have they ever felt nature call out to them? Of
course, was the emphatic reply. What had been their response? Thats when
emotions got out of hand. How come, cried the rebel there are always these rebels
when LeGallienne goes off work it is poetry; while if we do, we are bad?
What LaGallienne did was to write it and publish it (and make a little money too), I said.
May be if they were to also convert their fun into a creative piece?
Next came the
question from them. Did adults really set aside work or is LaGallienne an exception? The
reply was a question. What kind of people will take time off to say hello to
nature?
Children,
they said. And those who are like children.
Anybody
who has the heart of a child, said another.
The question
then was: what is the heart of a child? We
wrote the answers on the board:-
It is always
looking for something to do.
It is always
wanting to think of new things and invent new things.
It is always
wanting to have fun.
It knows when
someone is sad.
It loves
everything that a friend loves because a friend is so nice.
The heart of
a child is always thinking up how to trouble the big people around with its questions.
It is very
noisy, though sometimes really quiet.
What it
enjoys it can work on for long hours.
It does not
like to be disturbed when it is working seriously; older people do not believe that; even
when they are with their lego toys they are learning.
We ended the
class with an assignment : When nature moves me. After the children had left, I stood
looking at the board. Its been a long time, I felt, since I had been a child.
Aruna Raghavan can be contacted at: arusr@rediffmail.com