Judith Slater

JAKE’S POEM

I asked my grandson (8) to write a poem. We were waiting in the car
for his mother and sister to agree on a dress for her 5th grade graduation,
so he scribbled in a little notebook for about five minutes and handed me this

as fluffy as
a blue
jay. as fluffy
as a cloud
where the
blue jays
blue eggs
try to hatch
in the wind

He printed it and he put my real name, not grandma, at the top,
which moved me. I have been wrestling the imagination into words
for a number of years, but to have it burst into flower like that—
one has to be a child or practice letting it be.

—from Rattle #24, Winter 2005