Remembering Poetry

I was thinking about something that struck me funny. It happened at church on Easter Sunday, sitting in the pew with Andrea and Rob & Julie. First of all, I really was not expecting to see Rob & Julie and was completely surprised when they not only showed up, but decided to sit in their usual pew – with me. Secondly, after the whole “buying-their-house” fiasco, I was really shocked that they were civil – even though they were the ones who made it a “fiasco” in the first place. ...that’s all beside the point... Anyway – Andrea and I were discussing how the recent time change had really messed up her niece’s sleeping schedule. Rob piped up and made a comment about growing up in the north and how it felt like it was daylight until 10PM...to which I agreed, being from the north myself. Then I said, “Don’t you all remember that Robert Lewis Stevenson poem called ‘Bed in Summer’?” When everyone looked at me blankly, I began to recite: “In winter I get up at night And dress by yellow candle-light. In summer quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day. “I have to go to bed and see The birds still hopping on the tree, Or hear the grown-up people's feet Still going past me on the street. “And does it not seem hard to you, When all the sky is clear and blue, And I should like so much to play, To have to go to bed by day?” They all laughed a bit, looked a little surprised at my impromptu recital, and then Rob – as serious as he could be – said, “We’re engineers...we don’t do poetry.” It was all I could do to keep from laughing myself out of the pew! Julie, his wife, just nodded in agreement. With regard to the poem – I still love it to this day, which is probably why I was able to recite it off the top of my head like that. My grandmother, Tennie, used to read me all kinds of wonderful things when I was a kid and now I’m trying to instill my love of all things rhythmic and lyrical in my kids. Poetry, A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh), Eloise...so much more. I remember Grandma Tennie reading (and sometimes singing) to me in her scratchy, many-years-a-smoker voice – cigarette in one hand, scotch & milk (with one ice cube) in the other...when I was very young. TTFN JMS