Baubles and Babbling

This blog is a place for me to publish things I like, thoughts I think, and feelings I want to express. To kick it off, I would like to share a few poems from my new favorite poet: Arnold Adoff. His unique style involves using spacing and line breaks in creative ways to create rhythm and meaning. It is impossible to accurately recreate that on a blog but I'll do my best. (-: Here is a small selection to get you started on his works:

The Rain Falling on West Train Tracks, Ohio,

never seems to stop until it turns to snow
with winter cold. This is a new town for us,
with a new wet weather for my most unhappy
sinuses. But there is this girl in my class
at Power Mouse Junior High School whose
hair is the color of the best European candy
featured in the library magazines. And the

sun,
which is always and exclusively s h i n ing
over her sweet head, has m e l t e d some
of that fine brown down, to drip sprinkled
drops
of choc
o
late freckles onto her shining cheeks.


~

I Will Hold Your Hand

and take a fine walk
around the lake with
you.
I will hold your hand
and sit down at the
side
walk
cafe to share a piece
of lemon cake or two.
I will hold your hand
and eat some popcorn
as we stroll around
the zoo and see what
we can see. But you
know, baby love, my own
sweet dear and lovely
you:
I'm saving all of my
chocolate kisses just
for
me.

~

Both of these poems are from "Chocolate Dreams". The following are from another delightful book by Adoff titled "All the Colors of the Race". I didn't separate them with a tilde (~) because the entire book is made up of separate poems that flow togehter like a single long poem. Since I didn't have room for everything I made selections. It might be of interest to know that Adoff is white, his late wife was black, and at the time they married that was a very unpopular marriage. This book is written from the point of view of a child with one white Jewish parent and one black Christian parent, which describes Adoff's family precisely. It's a charming book in many ways.


All the colors of the race

All the colors of the race
are
in my face, and just behind my face:
behind my eyes:
inside my head.

And inside my head, I give my self a place
at the end of a long
line forming
it self into a
circle.

And I am holding out my hands.


I think the real color is behind the color

I think the real color is behind the color.
That
skin on
my face is for the cold mornings,
and
the cool breezes of some
summer afternoons.

Under that skin and under that
face
is the real
race.


Sum People

The black man
said
I was a half
breed.
but I told
him
to
check out his
math:
like
one
plus
one.


The way I see any hope for later

The way I see any hope for later,
we will have to get
over this color thing,

and stop looking
at how much brown
or tan there is
in
or on this
woman
or that man.
And stop looking
at who is a woman
and
who is a man.

(facing page)

Stop looking.
Start loving.

All the colors of the race

All the colors of the race. Human, of course.
Beginning in Africa, in Asia, in the
Middle
East.
and long before Plymouth
Rock.

In ancient kingdoms the people are firing
clay heads for their gods;
mixing
colors
for the headcloths
of the mothers.

Mixing colors.
Mixing
colors.

(following page)

All the colors of the race. Human, of course.