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Two Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye

Where Children Live


Homes where children live exude a pleasant rumpledness,

like a bed made by a child, or a yard littered with balloons.

To be a child again one would need to shed details

till the heart found itself dressed in the coat with a hood.

Now the heart has taken on gloves and mufflers,

the heart never goes outside to find something to do.

And the house takes on a new face, dignified.

No lost shoes blooming under bushes.

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No chipped trucks in the drive.

Grown-ups like swings, leafy plants, slow-motion back and forth.

While the yard of a child is strewn with the corpses

of bottle-rockets and whistles,

anything whizzing and spectacular, brilliantly short-lived.

Trees in children’s yards speak in clearer tongues.

Ants have more hope. Squirrels dance as well as hide.

The fence has a reason to be there, so children can go in and out.

Even when the children are at school, the yards glow

with the leftovers of their affection,

the roots of the tiniest grasses curl toward one another

like secret smiles.


The Rider

A boy told me

if he roller-skated fast enough

his loneliness couldn’t catch up to him,

the best reason I ever heard

for trying to be a champion.

What I wonder tonight

pedaling hard down King William Street

is if it translates to bicycles.

A victory! To leave your loneliness

panting behind you on some street corner

while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas,

pink petals that have never felt loneliness,

no matter how slowly they fell.


Naomi Shihab Nye was born in St. Louis and lives in San Antonio, Texas. Of American and Palestinian heritage, she is author or editor of 30 books, including the teen novels
Habibi and Going Going and eight anthologies of poetry. She has been a Lannan Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Wittner Bynner Fellow, and was elected a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2010. “Where Children Live” is from Words Under the Words (Far Corner Books), and “The Rider” is from Fuel (Boa Editions). Both poems are reprinted by permission. Author photograph by Michael Nye.

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Where Children Live


Homes where children live exude a pleasant rumpledness,

like a bed made by a child, or a yard littered with balloons.

To be a child again one would need to shed details

till the heart found itself dressed in the coat with a hood.

Now the heart has taken on gloves and mufflers,

the heart never goes outside to find something to do.

And the house takes on a new face, dignified.

No lost shoes blooming under bushes.

Sponsored
Sponsored

No chipped trucks in the drive.

Grown-ups like swings, leafy plants, slow-motion back and forth.

While the yard of a child is strewn with the corpses

of bottle-rockets and whistles,

anything whizzing and spectacular, brilliantly short-lived.

Trees in children’s yards speak in clearer tongues.

Ants have more hope. Squirrels dance as well as hide.

The fence has a reason to be there, so children can go in and out.

Even when the children are at school, the yards glow

with the leftovers of their affection,

the roots of the tiniest grasses curl toward one another

like secret smiles.


The Rider

A boy told me

if he roller-skated fast enough

his loneliness couldn’t catch up to him,

the best reason I ever heard

for trying to be a champion.

What I wonder tonight

pedaling hard down King William Street

is if it translates to bicycles.

A victory! To leave your loneliness

panting behind you on some street corner

while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas,

pink petals that have never felt loneliness,

no matter how slowly they fell.


Naomi Shihab Nye was born in St. Louis and lives in San Antonio, Texas. Of American and Palestinian heritage, she is author or editor of 30 books, including the teen novels
Habibi and Going Going and eight anthologies of poetry. She has been a Lannan Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Wittner Bynner Fellow, and was elected a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2010. “Where Children Live” is from Words Under the Words (Far Corner Books), and “The Rider” is from Fuel (Boa Editions). Both poems are reprinted by permission. Author photograph by Michael Nye.

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