I am not usually a reader of poems. My brain does not follow some of the more complicated nuances that give poetry is edge. I can enjoy a work read to me (by the author..preferably in person), because I think performace is the key to meaning for me. But this one stuck while I was reading The Element, by Sir Ken Robinson. This book is one of the best and most helpful discussions on finding and moving towards living in your passion. And since I’m not a book reviewer and can’t do it justice at this time, I’m just going to recommend it and move on for now…
A Poem, by Loris Malaguzzi
The child is made of one hundred.
The child has
a hundred languages
a hundred hands
a hundred thoughts
a hundred ways of thinking
of playing, of speaking.
A hundred always a hundred
ways of listening
of marveling of loving
a hundred joys
for singing and understanding
a hundred worlds
to discover
a hundred worlds
to invent
a hundred worlds
to dream.
The child has
a hundred languages
(and a hundred hundred hundred more)
but they steal ninety-nine.
The school and the culture
separate the head from the body.
They tell the child:
to think without hands
to do without head
to listen and not to speak
to understand without joy
to love and to marvel
only at Easter and at Christmas.
They tell the child:
to discover the world already there
and of the hundred
they steal ninety-nine.
They tell the child:
that work and play
reality and fantasy
science and imagination
sky and earth
reason and dream
are things
that do not belong together.
And thus they tell the child
that the hundred is not there.
The child says:
No way. The hundred is there.
I am no longer a child, but I want some of my ninety nine back. I’m working on it.