borrowed words.

Curious Silas and an excerpt from the loveliest springtime poem, in honor of National Poetry Month:

Every few minutes, he wants
to march the trail of flattened rye grass
back to the house of muttering
hens. He too could make
a bed in hay. Yesterday the egg so fresh
it felt hot in his hand and he pressed it
to his ear while the other children
laughed and ran with a ball, leaving him,
so little yet, too forgetful in games,
ready to cry if the ball brushed him,
riveted to the secret of birds…

– From Boy and Egg by Naomi Shihab Nye

In the introduction to her book of poetry for young girls, A Maze Me, Nye writes of her own adolescence, “I stared at tiny children with envy and a sense of loss. They still had cozy, comfortable days ahead of them. I was plummeting into the dark void of adulthood against my will. I stared into the faces of fretful, workaholic parents, thinking condescendingly, You have traveled too far from the source. Can’t you remember what it felt like to be fresh, waking up to the world, discovering new surprises every day? Adulthood is cluttered and pathetic. I will never forget. …If I wrote things down, I had a better chance of saving them.”