| Stories for the Telling: Mabel Kaplan |
| Poetry 'n Prose taken from the scrapbook of my childhood scribblings |
| Page 2 |
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I HID A BIRD I hid a bird inside my desk today. It seemed so cold and stiff. It did not move. And I am worried just in case someone who doesn't care should come along and bury it before it has a chance to rest and, then perhaps - grow warm |
INSIDE MY HEAD There's a place where I go when noise drowns my head and people around squeeze me in. When the sounds from around bounce back from the ground and I cannot hear where I am. It's not a far walk. I don't need to climb. Just a slide no-one sees and I'm there. This place where I go is where no-one says "No!" Where I can be quiet and find me. |
| MY NOTEBOOK A pencil tied with string joins my notebook and inside it I write those special things just for me and my notebook to know. |
WRITING IN INK * My teacher says: "Not just yet." I must a little better get before I write at school in ink. I practice nearly every day after school instead of play when I get off the bus - and home. When I look at what I've done it seems I'm not the only one who can't write well at school in ink. I take pen with careful hold and make the letters round and bold and then hand comes and blurs the ink. My writing every day grows better if judged by just the shape of letter. Why must she only see the smudge. - a left hander |
| * Before the era of ball-point pens there were pens with steel nibs which had to be dipped into inkwells filled with home-made ink. The ink would get very gluggy over time and what made it even worse was when someone put a fly or piece of chalk or something else into the inkwell. Getting just the right amount of ink on to the pen was an art in itself. Blobs of ink from an over full nib could mysteriously appear on a page of the most carefully produced writing. Then there was the problem of smudging. Ink smudged very easily until it was dry. Even the use of blotting paper did not always help. So all in all it was really very difficult to produce a clean page of work at the best of times. And if you happened to be left-handed the problem was even greater. |
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| CLOUDS Floating high across the sky ... I'm fluff and white - a cloud. I look below - moving slow - and watch the children play. But inbetween - when I feel mean I sometimes cover the sun |
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A special welcome to the children in Grade One at Suquamish School, Washington, DC . This page was set up for them because their teacher contacted me so we could learn more about each other. I am now enjoying an exchange of letters and poems that I trust will enrich our understanding of one another's country and culture: mine Western Australian; theirs American. I know I am enjoying it - and hope others who visit this site will do so, too. |
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