All About the World

Last week
my friend’s daughter Cassandra
asked me in a small voice
of wonder, if I wouldn’t mind
could I tell her all about the world?

Today she
telephoned and said I’m going to tell you
about poetry, since they had been hearing
poetry at school

Un huh, I said
because I couldn’t think of anything else
to say, and besides it had been hard work
not telling her all about the world

She said then
lowering her voice, letting me in
on a big one, Poetry is when words sing
I could hear, I think I could hear that already
she knew enough of ‘all about the world’
to keep her singing from time to time

And then she added,
since she was in that kind of a hurry,
About 100 years from now, trees
will be called very important people.

Michael Harlow