Your life

Your life shines
like a lemon
in leaves.

Your life speaks
commandments
through stone.

Your life stands
a sun dial
for puzzled souls.

Your life sings
a descant
to the planet's groan.

Your life
wrapped in sacking
pulses on.

Your life goes
where it goes
and has not gone:

A sweet-sour
birth-day
gift for you alone.


(For Diana Neutze on her 70th birthday, bitterly afflicted with MS and its complications, and still finding poetry in the garden.)

Quite right baby

Good fairies gather
around your name.
Our wishes are burdens.
Our wishes are gifts.

We wish you everything—
freckles and fame,
rockets and rocking chairs,
roses in the rain.

You can’t play with everything.
You don’t have time.
You don’t have the space.
You like the wrapping best.

A king among kids
you arrived
with a solid gold Lego set:
some people, some genes,

a city, a smile.
That’s everything.
That’s all you need
for the game.

You’ll make a mighty tower
or a tiny flower—
we don’t care which.
We love you anyway.

You play with the packaging.
Quite right, baby.
You’ll grow into your skin.
You’ll grow into your name.

© Rachel McAlpine 2009, For Hugo

Iceburg Land by Dylan aged 5

One day ice was falling over the land,
One day ice was falling over the land,
Over the iceburg land,
And in there was an ice crazed man,
An ice crazed man.

Yeah!

And the ice bite is ice
And the crack of the ice is the ice man
Ice man cracked on him.

Ha!

(c) Dylan Battersby Gifford, aged 5

I'm a grandmother too

I'm a grandmother too
(says Ruby).

That's my daughter
Anastasia.

She's old enough,
she's grown up.

She's got a baby
and her name's called Annemarie.

Mikaela can't always
come to parties.

At my July party
her grandmother was very sick.

Perhaps she'll die.
I know --

I'll secretly
get that thing.

What to do if you're on fire

If you catch on fire
(says Ruby)
you must stop, drop
and roll on the ground.

You stop your breakfast
or whatever you're doing
and roll on the ground
and the fire goes on to the grass.

A boy at school
fell in love with me.
It's Alwyn.
But don't tell Mum.

I don't know what she'd say.
He's still in love with me
but I don't play with Alwyn
any more.

I've voted twice

I've voted twice
(says Ruby).

The first time there were two people
and I voted for the one in the red top.

The second time there were three people
and I voted for the one in the blue top.

My new job
(and I think I will have it forever)
is Animal Lists.

Where's the jacket?

Where's the jacket
(says Ruby)?

Because it's due to get wet,
because it's supposed to get wet.
A jacket gets dry
but clothes don't.

I'll go out first
'cos I'm smaller than you.
If you have a migraine
we'll have to come back.

Things sometimes go the way we want,
and things sometimes don't.
And if you don't get it,
it's too bad.

Sore legs

The more you get sore legs
(says Ruby)
the more you get energy.

But the problem is
that if you get really bad walks,
you can't walk.
You get sore legs
and that's bad.

You couldn't do that,
no you couldn't do 13s and 14s and 15s,
not 8, 39, 100, 102, 103 walks.

You could go too far,
and people will shout in your ear
and you can never hear again.

The person who waves the arm

The person who waves the arm
(says Ruby,

washing the maneki-neko)
gets to wash the arm.

If they be crumb-washed
they can be new-all.

It means nothing
but it can be a bit of a pain.

You have to push hard
as if you're hurting them

but it's just to wash them
shiny and clean.

Eyeshadow

People come to Eyeshadow
(says Ruby)
to buy invisible monkeys
that don't exist.

And hopefully someone will buy
the bad angry girl-hitting
boy monkey.

It's a different Eyeshadow.
The Number 2 Eyeshadow.

The prescription

Tell you what, Granny

(says Ruby)

What say I write you

a prescription

for some medicine

to stop you forgetting

your friend

is dead.

You must add

your friend's name:

"Pat."

I didn't have someone

I didn't have someone

to play with today

(says Ruby).

But I was a bit happy

because

I didn't have to

go in and out

in and out

out and in.

Nothing left to learn

I can't remember what I learned today

(says Ruby).

I've got nothing left to learn.

I haven't learned anything

from pieces of paper,

just from aeroplanes.

This says

This says
(says Ruby)
that the Queen
of human Wellington
has died.

That's awful.
I'd better ring up
the Government.

Oh, hi.
The Queen has died.
What? Can't be! Oh no!
What are the butterfly fairies
going to do?
Oh really? Joking?
True?

A poor thing

I'm a poor girl
(says Ruby)
because I've got a sore throat.

Another poor thing
is a monarch butterfly
lying on the ground
with one wing bruised.

Dragon

I'm sorry I didn't bring
my new toy, Dragon
(says Ruby)
but he had a panic attack.

He lost his voice
and it's far far away
in the North Pole.
So it won't be back
till the weekend.

Ruby's rhyming poem

Dinosaur, dinosaur
don't eat me.
Eat someone else:
I'm Grann-y.

Body language

If it's very very very hard
(says Ruby)
to figure yes or no
that's your body's way
of saying No.

Here's an ambulance

Here's an ambulance
(says Ruby).
Will you fight with them please?

They're going to steal my marry dress.
Oh, they've wrecked my marry dress
with their words!

I have to talk to my Buddha about that.
But not today:
I have to sew my marry dress.

Do you know?

Do you know
(says Ruby)
how we stop smelling bad smells?
We roll around on the ground
like this,
and wiggle our hips.
See?

Do you know how we do ones?
We do a big line
and a line, like that.
You did it wrong.

Do you know I can say
warm as toast two ways.
Warm as toast
and toast as warm.