Childhood

This beautiful image is one of my childhood.  My wonderful mother bought me The Complete Book of the Flower Fairies which powered so much of my imagination.  I could stare for hours at the incredible drawings of gauzy wings and vibrant flowers.  The poems were fun to read as well and were just a "drop in the bucket" where my poetry collection is concerned.  Literature and poetry were a part of everyday life for me growing up.  My first book that I ever read was a rhyming book: Each Peach Pear Plum.  I can still recite the opening lines from memory: "Each peach pear plum, I spy Tom Thumb.  Tom Thumb in the cupboard, I spy Mother Hubbard."  Hands down one of my favorite children's books.  *Beware good friends of mine.... When you have babies, you're getting my favorite children's books!* 

THE SONG OF 
THE FORGET - ME - NOT FAIRY

So small, so blue, in grassy places
My flowers raise
Their tiny faces.
By streams my bigger sisters grow,
And smile in gardens,
In a row.
I've never seen a garden plot;
But though I'm small
Forget me not!


For a reason I can't figure out, the Harebell fairy was my favorite.  Maybe it was the delicate drooping blossoms, or the way the fairy looked so wistful and elegant; I think I wanted her dress... Either way, these fairies and their poems are things I still cherish in the well read pages of that book.

THE SONG OF 
THE HAREBELL FAIRY


O bells, on stems so thin and fine!
No human ear
Your sound can hear,
O lightly chiming bells of mine!


When dim and dewy twilight falls,
Then comes the time
When harebells chime
For fairy feasts and fairy balls.


They tinkle while the fairies play,
With dance and song,
The whole night long,
Till daybreak wakens, cold and grey,
And elfin music fades away.


(The Harebell is the Bluebell of Scotland.)