word poem #8
walter de la mare’s peacock pie
a book of poems for children was
given me as a kid some poems I
liked some I never even read it
was a big book a favorite was
(and is) “Silver”: “Slowly, silently,
now the moon walks the night in
her silver shoon” I didn’t need to be
told shoon’s meaning of course it was
an old-fashioned spelling of shoes and
how much nicer the poem continues
with moon-silvered “homely” images –
“Couched in his kennel, like a log, With
paws of silver sleeps the dog”– silver fruit
on silver trees, silver fish motionless in a
silver pool I am finding in these days of
distancing it is calming to think on silver
on shoon – saw it in a recent crossword
2020 Jacqueline Jackson
This article appears in Pandemic rocks the capital city.
