Autumn Thoughts

If you ever need a gift idea for a family with children then this is the book for you. Caroline Kennedy has complied a beautiful anthology of children's favorite poems. In the introduction she talks about how poetry played a special role in her family life. Her mother began a lifelong relationship with literature by reading out loud with her grandfather. The first poem her mother Jacqueline memorized with her grandfather was "And What Is So Rare As A Day In June?" Caroline and her brother John were encouraged to write or choose a favorite poem for each holiday or birthday as a gift for their mother and grandparents instead of buying a gift. Caroline put this book together a result of her work in the New York public schools because students showed her how poetry can connect each other in a new and powerful way.

With the start of school this week it is the unofficial end of summer. In the section called Seasons Caroline included a poem her mother wrote called "Thoughts". She felt it captured the feeling of sitting in school daydreaming about a life of adventure. And at some point most children in their school years have to write about Autumn. Caroline hoped by including this poem it might inspire some future poet to write about their back-to-school-days.

The illustrations throughout this book are paintings done by John Muth. They are exquisite and really capture the feeling in each poem. 

Thoughts

by Jacqueline Bouvier

I love the Autumn,

And yet I cannot say

All the thoughts and things

That make me feel this way.

I love walking on the angry shore,

To watch the angry sea;

Where summer people were before,

But now there's only me.

I love wood fires at night

That have a ruddy glow.

I stare at the flames

And think of long ago.

I love the feeling down inside me

That says to run away

To come and be a gypsy

And laugh the gypsy way.

The tangy taste of apples,

The snowy mist at morn,

The wanderlust inside you

When you hear the huntsman's horn.

Nostalgia-that's the Autumn,

Dreaming  through September

Just a million lovely things

I always will remember.