To get Grown – Unlatch
Your Hands from the Grown²
In Youth’s fair Dawn, the Soul
Untried, longs for life’s Conflict³
I’m Exploding with Youth and with Zest –
Who needs Corroding in some Vulture’s Nest?⁴
Words like “When you’re Older,” must Appease
Them – promises of Someday make their Dreams⁵
When the voices of Children are heard on the Green
And Laughing is heard on the Hill – my Heart is at
Rest within my breast, and Everything else is Still⁶
I want my Poetry to Live in some Child Forever⁷
All Children are Poets until they Quit the habit
Of Reaching for Butterflies that are not there⁸
The Adult isn’t the Highest stage
Of Development: the End of the
Cycle is that of the Independent,
Clear-Minded, All-Seeing Child⁹
Our Children’s Children by
Their Children will be Led¹⁰
¹ John Milton, Paradise Lost
² Yona Harvey, Hurricane
³ Charlotte L. Forten Grimké, Wordsworth
⁴ Irma Jurist & Eve Merriam, July Tree
⁵ Joni Mitchell, The Circle Game
⁶ William Blake, Nurse’s Song
⁷ Dorothy Allison, This Is Our World
⁸ Dunya Mikhail, Tablets V
⁹ Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh
¹⁰ Langston Hughes, Promised Land