When I was around eight or nine, I received a copy of Robert Louis Stevenson’s, A Child’s Garden of Verses, as a present. This book is one of my treasure, the cover has long since disintegrated. I read the poems at night before bed. I read them sitting outside under trees on warm, sunny days. My favorite was “Where Go the Boats?”
I used to wonder why liked the poem so much. I memorized the verses and thought about the words whenever I was near water, especially rivers. When studying geography in school I would look at the Danube, Rhine, Nile, Yangtze, Mekong, Euphrates, Tigris, Amazon, Mississippi, Missouri, Hudson, Colorado, Snake, Colombia Rivers and wonder where the water ended. I wondered about the people on the river banks watching the boats go by.
When we drive back and forth to Kansas we pass over the Rock, Mississippi, Cedar, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas Rivers and a host of smaller streams and creeks. My head is turning back and forth looking up or down the waterways. I fantasize about taking another canoe trip on the Wisconsin or Current Rivers.
What is it about the water and the flow? I do not know if I can define my feelings on the subject. The flow of the water makes me smile. Water relaxes me, whether I am on top of it, floating in it or listening to it. I have a four CD set titled the Waterfall Suite with lots of wonderful water themed music. Even the backyard pond with tiny waterfall is soothing to me.
The why I love the poem does not matter. I just do……….
©2011 Susan Kendall. All rights reserved
Where Go the Boats?
from A Child’s Garden of Verses, Robert Louis Stevenson
Dark brown is the river,
Golden is the sand.
It flows along for ever,
With trees on either hand.
Green leaves a-floating,
Castles of the foam,
Boats of mine a-boating–
Where will all come home?
On goes the river
And out past the mill,
Away down the valley,
Away down the hill.
Away down the river,
A hundred miles or more,
Other little children
Shall bring my boats ashore.
