Poetry for Children

I’ve been thinking about my favorite book of poetry as a child: A.A. Milne’s When We Were Four. My favorite poem hints at my love of fantasy:

Halfway Down

Halfway down the stairs

Is a stair

Where I sit.

There isn’t any

Other stair

Quite like

It.

I’m not at the bottom,

I’m not at the top;

So this is the stair

Where

I always

Stop.

…

Halfway up the stairs

Isn’t up,

And isn’t down

It isn’t in the nursery,

It isn’t in the town.

And all sorts of funny thoughts

Run round my head:

“It isn’t really

Anywhere!

It’s somewhere else

Instead!”

I remember sitting halfway down the stairs, just like the child in the picture, pondering this, and finding the idea of being somewhere else instead totally delicious.

Maureen