The poem pictured above was supposedly written by a first grader. Here’s a formatted and slightly corrected text version:
 

We did the soft wind

We danced slowly

We swirled around

We danced soft

We listened to the music

We danced to the music

We made personal space

This was written by a kid, about 6 years old. And it moved me more than a lot of Shakespeare’s works have. I’m not trying to sell sunshine on this post, I’m confessing a kind of darkness. Or at least something I tend to try to keep in shadow.

The truth is, most poetry confuses me.

Strangely though, as early as I can remember, I’ve always loved words. I always knew I wanted to say things… differently, if I could, whenever I could. Before I even knew what the lines and dots and curves of letters were.

Now I’m a “man,” and in all that time, I’ve never once considered myself a writer. Not even now, which is probably very ironic since I’m writing this collection of lines, dots and curves grouped into the usual suspects, words, chillin’ out together in little gangs of thought, sentences, for you to read.

As visual as I am, designing and drawing and creating pictures, I’m fascinated by all the simple little logos of our language we all know as every single word. And I know I can arrange them, for the same thought, in so many different weird ways: Sentences are the footprints left by a resting flock of words. Sentences are word orgies. Sentences are your hastily barked order at the elusive food truck of meaning.

I don’t think I’m alone in this about poetry. They can be beautiful beyond worthy description, but some poems, many, make me feel stupid because I don’t understand them. Or they make me feel like I’m literal, with an idiot mirror’s imagination, only able to conceive what is plainly present before it.

I’ve found myself trying to figure them out, like riddles, what in the utter f*ck their intended meaning was. Meanings that, sadly, completely elude me. I force myself not to Google their meanings. And then today, I come across the adventurously legible meanderings of a wonderful six-year-old’s pencil. And I’m moved.

I’m taken by it.

It has meaning for me.

It gave me a special personal space.

Also, the little people drawings were cute. 😉

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