Speed

Paper ghosts
dancing in the wind
along a wooden fence.

Bianca toddles
into her backyard, tiny
white sneakers untied
twirls around
and around
arms outstretched
like a ballerina.

It’s Halloween today;
She can be anyone
she wants to be.

Drag racer
speeding down
a suburban road.

He’s eighteen today:
He can do anything
He wants to do.

Small white wagon
spins around and
around, through a fence,
through paper ghosts.

Bloody white sneakers
in the autumn leaves;
tire tracks to a
mother’s knees
beside her ballerina.

copyright Heather Grace Stewart
Please, drive slower.

I wrote this poem for Bianca and her family and friends. I don’t like it when my poems are so painful yet so true, but this one is based on real events. Three-year-old Bianca was ploughed down by drag-racers in her daycare backyard last Halloween week, just a few kilometres from where I live in QC, Canada. Please, slow down, especially where there could be children playing.

Messy Nat and Neat Nina

I like to dust;
I like to clean.
I love to make things
shimmer and glean.

My sister Nat is different;
she likes a good mess.
So sometimes I clean for her,
I confess.

Once I took her to the cleaners,
not her old coin Laundromat,
but they made a mistake,
and laundered Nat!

I came back the next day.
There she hung, with the clothes:
Spotless and pressed,
from her head to her toes.

Now we share the housework,
But Nat gets the clothes cleaned.
For we’ll never forget
That day she was steamed.

copyright Heather Grace Stewart, 2008
Thought I’d share with you a sample of my children’s poetry. I like to make children giggle so they’re encouraged to keep reading. I’m working on a children’s poetry blog and a book of children’s poems. Stay tuned!

Make Your Mark

Voting day for our federal election here in Canada is next Oct. 14, so I thought I’d post a few election-related poems from Where the Butterflies Go. I wrote Golden Dreams a little over four years ago – how odd (and sad) that very little has changed and this poem still makes sense for our coming election. I penned My Mark just before our last provincial election – it was published in Babylon Burning: 9/11 Five Years On, an anthology edited by Todd Swift- all proceeds go to the Red Cross so please consider buying this collection for a great cause.  I won’t get all political on you here and share how I’m going to vote -  just want to say please don’t forget to make your mark – one vote can make a difference.

Golden Dreams

Durango Gold,
Durango Gold,

We choose ceramic tiles
content,
while war rages
over the ocean.

7 Soldiers Dead in Baghdad

We care, but still go about our lives.

“Shall we buy a BBQ?”
“Get the driveway paved?”

And I cringe, to think we can build
a house of dreams
While 200 thousand Canadians cry for
simple shelter.

Enter another election
sure to lead us nowhere
but back to Status Quo.

Durango Gold,
Durango Gold,

Doesn’t shine the same
for me anymore.

There are dark clouds
across this Canadian sky.

My mark

In the streets of Baghdad
women walk with trembling hands
to cast their vote—
fearing for their lives,
searching for snipers in the shadows,
pointing their purple-stained fingers
in the face of terror.

In these streets of red and white
I will cast my vote with pride;
no longer apathetic.

I make this mark
for the women who paved the way,
told to mind their husbands;
to stay out of a man’s world.

I make this mark
for the women who dared to think,
to dream, to speak;
whose words were stifled,
but not their spirits.

I will make my mark
for my foremothers—
and the bloodied women
of Baghdad.

Heather Grace Stewart