SkyDancers


Dream big dreams

This poem was written a number of years ago in response to the following story about a very special girl called Amy.

Amy’s parents went away. In their absence, her grandparents came to look after Amy and her brothers. At five, Amy already had an adventurous spirit. This was a girl who loved to climb trees.

Amy loved to climb the tall tree in the front garden. Her little feet knew the safe places on the trunk. All the knots and branches carried her upwards. Always, there was the longing to rise.

One morning, Amy’s gran came into the garden looking for her. She saw Amy in the tree and was terrified, as any reasonable adult would be. She demanded that Amy climb down, so she scrambled down and sat on the low veranda wall.

Amy promptly fell off the wall and broke her arm.

The moral of this story for me is simple. People, who love us dearly, will often call us down from what they perceive to be the dangerous places. Children dream big dreams and adults show them the low, safe wall of reality. I think we’re safe when we’re doing the things that we love, not when we’re in the places where others want us to be.

Children need to adventure. So do we.

When was the last time you climbed a tree to see the impossible, possible sky of your dreams?

There is a tree with my name on it too.

SkyDancers
                    for Amy

All children should be taught to climb trees,
To dance like leaves about the hard-set ground.
Toes plumped with life, must paddle
Upside-down, up-current in sea skies,
Drifting their arms in waves of laughter.
Children must stand tip-toed
In the highest brances,
Flying their hair in the clouds.

These SkyDancers will pirouette
On a fat, yellow sun-dall
Towards child in the moon dreams –
Beyond gravity,
Beyond grey faced
Come-down-to-earth-Now-frowns
And black-hole mouths that
dwarf their stars.
                                Ruth Everson

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