Aug. 28, 2007 - 18:41 MDT

ON THE EDGES

Through my life I have lived browsing and drowsing through the lines of some of my favorite people. My Robert Louis Stevenson's "A Child's Garden Of Verses," which I pull off daughters bookshelf when we visit there and spend a very late evening (after all family are abed) reading the whole book once a blessed again to myself.

And there are others I came upon when grown, Maya Angelou for one, after reading her "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" I started reading her poetry and was and still am deeply moved by her poetry.

And then late in life while recovering from a near death experience our dear daughter gave me Shel Silverstein's "Where The Sidewalk Ends" And that one poem in that book took me once again to my blessed childhood days when I lived out where the sidewalk ends. Which led to another book of his "Falling Up" which I dearly love.

I have many books of poetry, but those I love the most are the ones that seem to have a child's philosophies embedded.

However, thinking back memories of Mom holding me on her lap and reading to me from A Child's Garden of Verses. I guess I had a lot of them memorized from hearing her read to me. I think it made it easier for me to learn to read.

And then, was it Longfellow who wrote Hiawatha ? Dad and Mom had a big book of those poems and one weekend on Friday night Dad started to read Hiawatha to Mom and I and on Sunday night it was done. Most every Sunday Dad would read poetry from that book to us. He had a natural talent of expression and rhythm that made poetry flow like honey. Often at night as I drifted off to sleep I would hear Dad reading to Mom from Omar Kayhaam.

There might have been a seed of natural poesy inborn in me, but certainly that seed was nurtured and well tended.

I was raised on the edge of town, Denver but not quite uncountrified yet. Gravel streets, no curb and gutter and in our part of town there were footpaths along the front of houses. We lived near the country, just a few blocks west and across the Platte River and I was in the country. And through a good part of my life we have lived in places like that, the only thing in front of our house now is an asphalt street with a mailbox the postman can reach from his vehicle.

Out Where The Sidewalk Ends, I seem to have lived my life out ON THE EDGES . . . . . . . . . . . .

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