Clara Kilman sends in this report of kids in search of poetic inspiration in the park
My daughter Anna has been given the homework of writing a poem about autumn. Sitting at the kitchen table, chewing her pen, she calls out: ‘How about this?
‘I gave a leaf
To my friend Keith
Who has big teeth’
‘You don’t know anyone called Keith,’ my 5-year-old Zara objects from the sofa.
‘Right, let’s go to the park and find some inspiration,’ I say, walking over to the window and looking out at the trees. ‘Lots of poets got their ideas from nature: Keats, Wordsworth, John Clare…’ I turn round and realise they have both vamoosed, off to the hall to get their coats and shoes.
Maybe I was rambling on a bit, but it seems easier to get them to go on park trips in the autumn, all those beautiful colours, all those piles of leaves to scrunch in.
Oh yes and the promised hot chocolate when we come back home, that always helps with motivation.
We walk through the park gates and are greeted by two big green fields covered with fallen leaves.
‘Why don’t you describe them for your poem?’ I propose.
‘Leaves cover the grass like sprinkles dropped onto two giant green cupcakes,’ Anna suggests.
I give her a thumbs up, privately wondering if my daughters ever have a thought that doesn’t involve treat foods.
We continue down to the playground.
There is one tree there that is entirely covered in burnt copper leaves. ‘Looks like a big candle flame, warming up the playground,’ Anna says.
It is a poignant moment until Zara runs towards it like a mad thing, shouting ‘I’m going to blow it out, I’m going to blow it out’ and making exaggerated raspberry noises.
Next to the orangey-brown tree is one with dark green leaves.
‘Why hasn’t that tree turned autumny?’ Zara says.
‘It’s an ‘everfree’ tree,’ Anna says, with that know-it-all tone popular with big sisters trying to lord it over their younger siblings.
‘Er no, it’s called evergreen,’ Zara says, putting her sister in her place.
‘I like thinking of them as ‘everfree’ trees, I’m going to call them that from now on,’ I say, mainly to stop a battle breaking out, but also because there is something uplifting about the moniker.
‘I hope all nature will be everfree,’ I continue, but the girls aren’t listening, they’re too busy filling the basket swing with fallen leaves.
‘We are making autumn leaf soup,’ they announce.
Having given the soup a good stir, the girls pour it out for any hungry autumn leaf-eating creatures and we head past the bowling green.
Ahead of us is a row of trees with green leaves that have started turning sulphur yellow. In the middle of the line is one tree, a different type, that has lost its leaves entirely
‘What do you think of that one?’ I say to Anna.
‘It looks like a load of old bones pointing up to the sky.’
‘Lovely,’ I say with a grimace as Anna immediately writes it down in her pad.
‘Why is that tree the only one that has got no leaves at all on it?’ she wants to know.
‘It’s a fast developer,’ Zara says.
The expression ‘fast developer’ had come up at home recently when I was trying to explain to Zara why some of the girls in her class have lost lots of their baby teeth and she hasn’t had one wobbly one yet.
‘Some trees lose their leaves quickly in autumn, some lose their leaves slowly,’ I say, ‘some don’t lose their leaves at all.
‘Yes, they’re everfree,’ Zara shouts. ‘And can we please have our hot chocolate now?’
