LITTLE BROWN STICKS, a children's book of poems

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Little Brown Sticks
 

First little brown sticks,
Then pink blossoms, this early bloom.

Winter, beneath a dark sky

They emerge,
Half-dry branches

Holding brushstrokes of color,
Small green buds.
 

Geese

They fly two together,
The simple stars a quilt
Thrown across the night.
 

Fish

Fish, orange and silver, like seaweed
Floating in dark water, in small pools of tidal sunlight.

Beneath the waves which foam white upon the rocks,
They swim silently as ghosts, brushing against sea anemones,
Blowing salt from their round fish mouths.
 

Rain

Rain likes to jump out of clouds,
Fall,

Sleep in leaves.
It likes to splash into puddles

And into streams.
Rain likes to make sounds

On your window
In the middle of the night

As you dream.
 

Snakes

Snakes like to make different shapes.
They like S's

And circles,
And they leave their skins behind them

When they slither away.
 

Toads

There are little yellow toads
In Mexico, fat little yellow toads
That jump out at you, no bigger than a finger.

They hop across asphalt roads in the middle of the jungle
Where it is so wet and green
That the road forms pools and puddles where it is worn,
And the asphalt turns slick and black in the middle of the night.

No bigger than beetles, tiny toads bluster
Out from the bushes, little yellow toads
Crossing the roads in the middle of the night.
 

My Tree

When I walked to school
There was a tree
With a trunk that was brown and wrinkled,
It had roots like elephants' feet.

In the early summer
It would keep the sun off of my head,
And in the fall
It would drop its red leaves
Onto the ground for me,

And in the winter when it rained,
It would splash me with little drops of water,
And hide dark puddles in its feet.
 

Snow

Do ice fairies live in snow crystal palaces,
Do red roses
Bloom like musical notes
In summer and spring?

Who knows why there is snow?
Some people say they know. Some people say that water
Freezes.

Why does summer send roses
Blooming into the blue sky?
 

Hills

Hills are like unbroken waves
Moving across the sky,

They are a bed made of green grass
Which the sun rises from
In the early morning
And returns to at night.

Hills are shaped like the side of your hand.

The moon balances on the edges of hills
As it rolls across the night.
 

The Magpie

Its round white breast
Covers its chest
As softly as snow
Covers the ground.

Snowflakes fall
Starlike
Upon its back.

It's as white as snow
And as black as the dark
Night sky.

It can fly.

The Magpie.
 

Riddle

When it rises in the morning
It looks as if it has grown
On a golden apple tree,

And at sunset
It is a red apple falling
Ripe from the sky.
 

Cactus

I have a small
Round glass bowl
With three cactus in it.

They sit there quietly,
And don't get thirsty very often.
 

Lizards

Lizards like to rest in the sunlight.
On those warm days in early summer
When the bright green leaves
Shimmer, and water sounds like trees
Rustling in a breeze, lizards listen, slowly
Blink their eyes, watch
As the water insects
Dance across the stream.
 

Dream

Dream of a blackbird pecking seed,
Dream of the moon, a white pearl in the black sky.

Dream of water,
Dream of seedpods shaking in the wind.
 

Horses

There is a painting with blue horses
That hangs in the museum.

The horses' blue necks are long and graceful, 
One horse looks out toward you,
Out from the blue picture,
From beneath the blue and purple sky,

He looks out to where the clouds
Are white and the sunset violet,
Out to where the hills are like long soft shadows
In the still twilight.

One blue horse eats grass, the other
Drinks from a clear pool of water,

One horse watches
As the sunset behind you
Slowly dims and turns into night.
 

Riddle

It has nothing to wear.
It likes to make leaves move
And dust blow.

It travels across snow.
 

Wind

Wind likes to touch things.
It talks to you
And brushes your hair.

Even though you can't see it,
You know that it's there.
 

Daughter

My daughter eats granola
And Tembra is her name.
She used to eat crayolas,
Which isn't quite the same.

My daughter's name is Tembra,
And now that she has grown,
She doesn't eat crayolas,
At least when she's at home.

Sometimes she goes outside to slide,
I don't know what she does,
Then when I ask why her mouth is green,
She says, "It's just because!"
 

Tulips

Small scarlet cups
Which hold sunlight inside of them.
 

Iris

Within the cup
Of its waxen petals
The white Iris holds the yellow
Markings of small fans.

These Iris Are like tigers in their fierceness, they are small
Feet. Their petals when pressed in a book
Seem as if on a journey, their petals are small feet.

The white Iris holds within its cup the yellow markings
Of fans, tigers, small feet.
 

Little Gray Bugs

There are little gray bugs
That like to cross sidewalks
In the rain.

They have so many feet
That I am surprised
They never trip.

When you stand over them,
Your shadow scares them,
And they stop.

When you touch them with your finger,
They turn themselves into little round balls

And roll away.
 

Dandelions

Dandelions are small fairy horses.
They travel across green meadows in springtime,
And when the first frost has melted,
They travel across white clouds,
And disappear behind the sun.
 

In the Stillness of Sleep

In the deep quiet of night,
In the stillness of sleep,
Like lullabies
Or the movements of waves,

Dark clouds at midnight
Cross the moon
Like weavings of dreams.
 

Snow Geese

They fly across the snow
The same way the moon crosses the night sky.
 

The Moon

When it becomes cold
The forest becomes covered with frost.
The moon shines on it
In the middle of the night.

The moon is a flame,
A light,
The candle of a fairy

Who carries all of the roses
And drops them into Spring.
 

Poems

Poems Are like birds.
Because of their small
Black watching eyes,
They should not stay caged
In books.

Poems are like birds.
They can fly onto your shoulder,
And you can take them with you
Wherever you go.
 
 

All poems on this page belong to the author.
Copyright (c) Velene Campbell, 2004. All rights reserved.