Rainy Sunday thought

[flemmings]

Those online question memes often ask a variant on 'What did you want to be when you grew up?' I never /wanted/ to be anything but this is what I thought I would be:

Helga

The wishes on this child's mouth
Came like snow on marsh cranberries;
The tamarack kept something for her;
The wind is ready to help her shoes.
The north has loved her; she will be
A grandmother feeding geese on frosty
Mornings; she will understand
Early snow on the cranberries
Better and better then.

Sandburg wrote a poem for each of his three daughters. This was for the youngest, published when she was two. Prophetic, in the event: she was the only one who married and had children, and devoted herself to animals.

Comments

[i_am_zan]

I love some of Sandburg's poetry. Thank you for reminding me. ^_^

I don't think I had many grand designs ... I just wanted to be happy I think ... and I wanted to write ... I suppose blogs and fanfic qualify, I'm easy to please I think. ^_~

[flemmings]

You're welcome.

I wonder how many kids do have grand designs, or 'I want to be a doctor' plans.

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

That's very lovely. Thanks for sharing it.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

You're welcome.

[incandescens]

That is a lovely poem.

I believe I wanted to be a nurse. And a pearl-diver, in my spare time - possibly at weekends.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Nurse from the family connection with the NHS? Pearl diver is bit more recherche. I didn't even know there were such things, as a child.

[incandescens]

I think it was before my mother was entwined into the NHS. I was very young.

I'm not sure where I got the pearl diver idea from - an old family copy of Biggles in the South Seas, possibly? (I was prone to reading anything if my parents didn't get it away from me fast enough.)

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Biggles. Oh my. I can see why your parents might have had to keep an eye on your reading.

[incandescens]

Though it could quite possibly have been something else. Actually, come to think of it, it might well have been Jacques Cousteau - I remember reading The Silent World at quite an early and impressionable age. Or at least some version of it.

(The story of my life. "I read it at an early and impressionable age.")