The Gardener
After a particularly annoying day at work I came home and was my typically grinchy, grousing, grumbly self that I usually am when the pre-Christmas, pre-tax, pre-bill time comes around. So tonight, for her pre-bedtime stories, my little one requested several poems from Robert Louis Stevenson's "A Child's Garden of Verses."
Here's one that I read:
The Gardener
The gardener does not love to talk,
He makes me keep the gravel walk;
And when he puts his tools away,
He locks the door and takes the key.
Away behind the currant row
Where no one else but cook may go,
Far in the plots, I see him dig
Old and serious, brown and big.
He digs the flowers, green, red, and blue,
nor wishes to be spoken to.
He digs the flowers and cuts the hay,
And never seems to want to play.
Silly gardener! summer goes,
And winter comes with pinching toes,
When in the garden bare and brown
You must lay your barrow down.
Well now, and while the summer stays,
To profit by these garden days
O how much wiser you would be
To play at Indian wars with me!
So here's the real kicker: Me, feeling all grouchy and out of sorts, read this poem to my five year old and I was deeply moved; regretful, shamed, morose...
So Alice looked at me and she said, "What does he mean?"
And I said, "Well, he was saying that while the sun is out and the weather is nice we should enjoy it and appreciate it and take the time to be happy and play. If we don't, the winter will come and we won't be able to run around and have fun anymore, so we should enjoy things while they last."
She blinked, thought about it for only a very short moment and said, "Well, we can just put on our winter coats and do it anyways."
How I love that kid!
Here's one that I read:
The Gardener
The gardener does not love to talk,
He makes me keep the gravel walk;
And when he puts his tools away,
He locks the door and takes the key.
Away behind the currant row
Where no one else but cook may go,
Far in the plots, I see him dig
Old and serious, brown and big.
He digs the flowers, green, red, and blue,
nor wishes to be spoken to.
He digs the flowers and cuts the hay,
And never seems to want to play.
Silly gardener! summer goes,
And winter comes with pinching toes,
When in the garden bare and brown
You must lay your barrow down.
Well now, and while the summer stays,
To profit by these garden days
O how much wiser you would be
To play at Indian wars with me!
So here's the real kicker: Me, feeling all grouchy and out of sorts, read this poem to my five year old and I was deeply moved; regretful, shamed, morose...
So Alice looked at me and she said, "What does he mean?"
And I said, "Well, he was saying that while the sun is out and the weather is nice we should enjoy it and appreciate it and take the time to be happy and play. If we don't, the winter will come and we won't be able to run around and have fun anymore, so we should enjoy things while they last."
She blinked, thought about it for only a very short moment and said, "Well, we can just put on our winter coats and do it anyways."
How I love that kid!