Field
Photo by Amy LV
When I was a little girl, our home was surrounded by fields. And so of course, my sister Heidi, the neighbors, and I would play and play and play in the ditches and goldenrod patches, pretending we were runaway orphans, animals, anything and everything. We'd pat down the weeds and hide ourselves in there for hours, and the green stems really felt like solid walls. These neighboring fields were my second home, my imagination home.
In time, each field was bulldozed into a lot for a new house, and the locations of our small hideaways disappeared, turning, one-by-one, into grassy yards and basements. Progress goes on, but sometimes it makes me feel sad.
Students -This is a poem about change, and it is also about a loss that made me a little bit empty. You will notice that structurally, this verse is simply a list of descriptions, closing up with a question and statement. Writing this poem didn't make the houses go away, but giving voices to my feelings helped me to say goodbye and maybe, to connect with other people who have felt this same way.
If you're interested in thinking more about children spending more time in nature, visit the Children & Nature Network, an organization brimming with generous and wise resources for home and classroom.
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