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I recently figured out how to get eBooks onto my iPad, and went straight to Project Gutenberg to get some subway reading material. I got really excited when I found Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I was very pleased with myself when I added John Keats' Endymion. I was downright smug when I clicked "download" for the Confessions of Saint Augustine of Hippo.

And then I found the children's section.

I have excellent intentions when it comes to literature, and sometimes they carry me through quite impressive reading lists. And the rest of the time I succumb to an incurable - and inexplicable - passion for nineteenth-century children's literature. I know it's outmoded. I know it's contrived. I know it glosses blithely over a hundred social issues of the age. But oh, it's escapism at is very best, and I just can't resist it.

So I have had my head full of children's verse again this week, and since my efforts in that area were so well-received last time, I decided to revive my old plan of writing a whole series of 21st-century chidlren's poems. This time I mined my own past for ideas, so I hope my family will forgive me for the licence I've taken with some particular memories.

My Friends

I have a thousand little friends
No bigger than my thumb.
They fly with magic mittens on
And when I call, they come.

I call them with my fingertips;
A wiggle means "come play!"
I clap means "let me talk to you."
A wave means "fly away."

I know a lot of them by name:
There's little Emily
(Whose mittens are too big for her),
And also Sally B.,

And Mark, who wins the flying races,
Old Marie, and Joe,
And - well, a lot more than you'd think
A kid like me could know.

My friends are all invisible
Unless I say "appear,"
So grown-ups never see them
Even though they're always near.

We play a lot of Hide-and-Seek,
And Tag, and Count-to-Ten,
And then we rescue Emily,
Who's lost her mitts again.

The other kids need games or toys,
Computers, or TV.
But I have fingers full of friends
And that's enough for me.


"My Friends" by Erin Woods is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The Present
My sister had a birthday
With some presents just for her,
And all day long we guessed and guessed
At what we thought they were.

"The big one's a computer!" and
"The little one's a doll!"
I thought one was a puppy,
But that wasn't right at all.

'Cause later when the cake was done
And everyone was full,
She opened up that box and said,
"Oh, it's adorable!"

Then Mommy smiled and Grandma laughed
And so did Grandpa Drew.
I hope I get a Dorable
For my next birthday, too!


"The Present" by Erin Woods is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

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