Child Building
Poem by Matthew Bailey
Photo by Caroline Simpson
You don’t need to bring much.
There is much, however, not to bring.
No complicated tools,
No compasses, no rulers
No manuals, no blueprints
An empty sand bucket and a toy shovel will do.
That girl’s gonna want a clean slate, too
Maybe a stretch of sand, smoothed.
OK, now, Mama step off and watch her go!
Sands may fly up, or get dug into.
sands might get rolled and sliced Into round, Gingerbread cookies.
Amazing things are gonna rise, for surely.
Now the wind is swirling an amaranth leaf
In the deepening cochlea of the pink bucket.
She listens to the bucket filling up with seabird’s cries,
With the dune grass whispering Important Secrets.
And maybe a stomach rumbling, building is hard work.
Give that girl a small cup of Goldfish, quick!
And, yes, behind her, there is a pinched, red cloud
Lurking beneath a snapping banner of elusive blue sky.
And if that cloud swells scarlet
If that banner deepens towards dark,
There are less worries than a mockingbird’s lark.
Because, lookit, Mama, I have built
A beautiful palace or a sturdy fort
or a sandy mound of hippo, here.
A girl could live a good life in a hippo like this.
The poet Matthew Bailey (1963 – 2020) from Newark, Delaware was a wildlife biologist, steward and lover of nature, poet, activist, and friend to many. This collaboration with Caroline Simpson so wonderfully encapsulates all of these qualities.
The photographer Caroline Simpson is a 2020 Delaware Division of Arts Established Artist in Poetry whose chapbook, Choose Your Own Adventure and Other Poems, was published in 2018 by Finishing Line Press.
