I read M, Carl Sandburg’s Poem ‘Wind Song.’ M looked at me in distress. “Why would the wind throw money away?” he asked me, “I don’t like this poem. I don’t understand it. I don’t like it.”
Well, it is a modern poem, I wasn’t sure what it all meant myself, but I wasn’t expecting Matthew’s vehemence and it unnerved me a little. Deciding to trust that he’d get something out of it if I slowed down, I said, “Let’s figure it out together. The narrator is sleeping in an orchard,”
“Mom, wait a minute! I don’t even know what an orchard is!” so much for sleepy bedtime reading.
We reminded him that he’d just been to an orchard, to pick apples with grandma. An orchard, a big grove of fruit trees. We made many happy digressions on orchards, pies, other fruits that grow in orchards, our poem didn’t say apples… I cleared my throat, “The wind is making sound in it’s branches like, ‘Who, who are you?’”
“Oh, our wind does that too through our windows when they aren’t closed all the way.” Long digression on scary night sounds.
Suddenly, M cried out, “I know why the wind is throwing it’s money away in the orchard, it’s the apple tree leaves.”
My husband and I locked glances, impressed. I had not thought of that, but it certainly fits. M settled down and smiled smugly at me.
Yeah, slow down, define terms, and he gets it better than I do.