For a Five-Year-Old
This week’s theme is: Woman. Enjoy!
For a Five-Year-Old
A snail is climbing up the window-sill
into your room, after a night of rain.
You call me in to see, and I explain
that it would be unkind to leave it there:
it might crawl to the floor; we must take care
that no one squashes it. You understand,
and carry it outside, with careful hand,
to eat a daffodil.
I see, then, that a kind of faith prevails:
your gentleness is moulded still by words
from me, who have trapped mice and shot wild birds,
from me, who drowned your kittens, who betrayed
your closest relatives, and who purveyed
the harshest kind of truth to many another.
But that is how things are: I am your mother,
and we are kind to snails.
-- Fleur Adcock
~ So, there’s something about this poem that I just love. I think it’s the way that the essence of life is played out through such a small scene; life’s dual spirit, creation and destruction, night and day, earth and sky. Cruelty and gentleness. In this mother’s simple action, she conveys a sense of gentle beauty to her child, even weighed against everything else she has done, this is weighed heaviest of all, because it is done out of love. A good parent never tries to teach a child about the nature of cruelty - they will all experience it well enough - but the daughter who watches her mother save this bit of life, her sense of gentleness and respect for life will grow and be nurtured by this action; she will adore her mother and learn this lesson, so that even when she grows up and understands that people are not always gentle and kind and good she can remember that even when the bad seems to overwhelm the good, the good is still out there, waiting for her to grab hold of it.
Next week’s theme is: Destiny. Happy hunting!
For a Five-Year-Old
A snail is climbing up the window-sill
into your room, after a night of rain.
You call me in to see, and I explain
that it would be unkind to leave it there:
it might crawl to the floor; we must take care
that no one squashes it. You understand,
and carry it outside, with careful hand,
to eat a daffodil.
I see, then, that a kind of faith prevails:
your gentleness is moulded still by words
from me, who have trapped mice and shot wild birds,
from me, who drowned your kittens, who betrayed
your closest relatives, and who purveyed
the harshest kind of truth to many another.
But that is how things are: I am your mother,
and we are kind to snails.
-- Fleur Adcock
~ So, there’s something about this poem that I just love. I think it’s the way that the essence of life is played out through such a small scene; life’s dual spirit, creation and destruction, night and day, earth and sky. Cruelty and gentleness. In this mother’s simple action, she conveys a sense of gentle beauty to her child, even weighed against everything else she has done, this is weighed heaviest of all, because it is done out of love. A good parent never tries to teach a child about the nature of cruelty - they will all experience it well enough - but the daughter who watches her mother save this bit of life, her sense of gentleness and respect for life will grow and be nurtured by this action; she will adore her mother and learn this lesson, so that even when she grows up and understands that people are not always gentle and kind and good she can remember that even when the bad seems to overwhelm the good, the good is still out there, waiting for her to grab hold of it.
Next week’s theme is: Destiny. Happy hunting!