By Ashlee
This poem was inspired by the uncomplicated thoughts of childhood.
“Worldviews”
There’s something quite interesting
In how we have viewed the world
How when we were young
And unspoiled
We saw the world like the animals
Primitive and pristine
The toddler on the porch
Looks up and sees the stars
Each one glittering
And sees nothing else
That is not there
Then the father walks outside
And explains the constellations
Giving them names and
Elaborate explanations
The magic is gone
It’s all over from that point on
And that child will never see
The world the same way again
And he will infect the neighbor kids
Who still see the world
As their own playground
Companion Poem: “The Snow Man” by Wallace Stevens
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.