Showing posts with label poems for kids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poems for kids. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Beneath the Willow-tree



  


On evergreen-lined oceans
We wave cheery farewells
Teetering on the tabletop
As Neptune bucks the swells
Aboard a wooden vessel
Young sailors off to sea
Our ship, the picnic table
Beneath the willow-tree

‘Hang on’ we urge the younger
Or with a flying leap
We splash into the garden
Where the water is so deep
For we are champion swimmers
The front yard a vast sea
And we could sail around the world
Beneath the willow-tree

We climb the Alps, the hayloft
Dim and dusty made us sneeze
There, Heidi and her Grandpa lived
They fed us bread and cheese
But we needed to hurry
A war was on, you see
So we scurried back to safety
Beneath the willow-tree

...where the wind tosses its tresses
As seething waters rise
We stagger on the tabletop
And hope we don’t capsize
For the sea is full of monsters
And woe if he or she
Fell to there death in foaming depths
Beneath the willow-tree

So we cling to each other
SOS, we shriek and squeal
Praying for a miracle
We crank a phantom wheel
Then we hear Mother calling
Back to reality
Its chore-time; we drop anchor
Beneath the willow-tree

© Janet  Martin

It didn't look like much...just an old weathered table beneath the willow-tree, but it was a schooner and the tickets were free!

Yesterday was the first day of summer vacation for Victoria and already I've heard the words 'I'm bored'.uh-oh.

Often, in this age of gadgets and screens I find myself thinking,
‘Kids don’t play like they used to’. When we grew up our greatest toy was our imagination. I remember my mother laughing and shaking her head saying ‘what must the neighbors think!’ as we were transformed to whoever we saw in our heads. We didn’t travel much in real life but we all loved to read, these stories fueling our wildest ventures. There was nothing quite as adventurous as ‘playing pretend’…oh, the untold destinations in those words ‘let’s pretend we’re…’and beneath the willow tree the summer fell away as we carried out kitchen chairs if necessary and they became school desks and Big Sister was Teacher and we all were naughty students until she punished us with a sheet of math-facts and suddenly school was over as students stomped off in a huff. We traveled ocean-liners and trains, tamed wild ‘tree-limb horses’, became airplanes...and yes, sometimes we were so bored we thought we were going to die, but then we 'invented' a new game. Boredom's desperation fuels imagination!

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Kid's Poem on Telling the Truth




I ought to never tell a lie
‘Cause lies like company
And soon the lie that first was one
Turns into two or three
For when a lie begins to lose
Its word-woven disguise
We protect it from the truth
By telling some more lies
And suddenly it’s hard to tell
How many lies were said
So it is always wise and well
To tell the truth instead

© Janet Martin


Thursday, June 6, 2013

The Tale of a Man Named Lou who Taught us Red is Blue...




Once, in a land of Lubadoo
There lived a man that folks called Lou
Now Lou, in everybody’s eyes
Was perceived to be very wise
And often times with nodding head
They all agreed to what Lou said.

Lou lived in a gray castle tall
And roses climbed the old stone wall
In lovely red, year after year
The bloom of roses would appear
And many paused to gaze in awe
At the red roses that they saw

One day in restless discontent
Lou stopped to smell their perfumed scent
He shouted, “Hear what I’ll tell you
These red roses are really blue!”
Folks shook there heads at what Lou said
For how can blue one day be red?

But Lou walked up and down the street
And every day he would repeat
That what was red is really blue
And slowly folks agreed with Lou
For wasn’t Lou still, after all
The wise man in that castle tall?

Then came that sad and solemn day
When Lou was old and passed away
The mourners stood out on the street
Where rose-petals fell at their feet
They told their children ‘here lived Lou
Who taught us red is really blue’

Now no one questions anymore
What they had all believed before
As generation rise and fall
Blue roses climb the castle wall
It seems they never, ever knew
These roses were not always blue

Time’s centuries have come about
And no one stops to think or doubt
For who can say red is not blue?
Nobody here has heard of Lou
Or how one day he simply said
'These roses are not really red'

…and visitors are mystified
To hear folk speak with love and pride
At these blue roses; how they’ve grown
Year after year against the stone
For no one here remembers Lou
Or wonders that red is not blue

The moral of this little tale
Is simply this; Truth does not fail
Though generations come and go
The truth remains unchanged and so
Before we teach that red is blue
We should make sure that it is true

Be careful then that none deceive
Lest generations thus believe
A vile untruth told to be true
For those red roses are not blue
Yet everyone within their youth
Were taught what others thought was truth


© Janet Martin

The inspiration for this poem came about in  few ways. Yesterday at my nephew’s wedding my brother told me he was searching my blog for a poem for his daughter to recite at school.
‘Oh, no,’ I said, ‘did you find anything? There is not a lot for kids on my blog!’
He grinned, ‘it was tough but eventually we found one that we both agreed on’.
…then, this morning my two older daughters and I had a pretty intense discussion on truth, faith, grace and the differing views that people have. I suddenly remembered something my dad said years ago, ‘truth is truth. Time and what people say does not change it, but if an untruth is taught long enough it will seem as truth, be taught as truth, believed as truth, but the truth remains; it is still an untruth.
God’s word is truth; ‘though Heaven and earth pass away my words will never pass away’.

My daughters and I agreed; what we believe must be tested by that which was, is, and ever will be Truth; God’s Word.

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. 2 Tim. 2:15