This poem, “The Native are Restless,” by Sandra Beasley offers an inimitable perspective on living with children.
Structured in thirteen unrimed couplets, the poem dramatizes the uniqueness that each child contributes to the household. The following are the first four:
1
Of course you invited them in: faces painted
like trick-or-treaters, carrying pointy spears.
2
The youngest clutched his goat, the tallest
her stack of bowls, and you had rooms to spare.
3
They fill the house with song and drums;
they show you the dance for morning, the dance
4
for evening, the dance for mowing the lawn.
They yank the dust covers off your heart.
The line, “They yank the dust covers off your heart,” fairly springs off the page. Sandra Beasley is a poet whose career is worth following.
To read the rest of the poem, as well as to hear it read, please visit, “The Native are Restless.”
NB: I have placed numbers between the couplets to separate them on the blog page.
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