To get Grown—Unlatch
Your hands from the grown—²
We’re Exploding with Youth and with Zest—
Who needs corroding in some vulture’s nest?³
Words like “when you’re older,” must appease them—
And Promises of Someday make their dreams—⁴
In youth’s fair Dawn, the soul untried,
Longs for life’s Conflict …⁵
The adult isn’t the highest stage of
Development: the end of the cycle is that of
The Independent, Clear-Minded, All-Seeing child.⁶
Our Children’s Children by their children will be Led!⁷
When the Voices of children are heard on the
Green, and Laughter is heard on the hill—
Our heart is at rest within our breast,
And everything else is Still.⁸
We want our poetry to
Live in some child forever.⁹
All children are Poets until they
Quit the habit of Reaching for
Butterflies that are not there …¹⁰
¹ John Milton, Paradise Lost
² Yona Harvey, Hurricane
³ Irma Jurist & Eve Merriam, July Tree
⁴ Joni Mitchell, The Circle Game
⁵ Charlotte L. Forten Grimké, Wordsworth
⁶ Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh
⁷ Langston Hughes, Promised Land
⁸ William Blake, Nurse’s Song
⁹ Dorothy Allison, This Is Our World
¹⁰ Dunya Mikhail, Tablets V