The Lost Child

My typical day on mondays and wednesdays consists of 2 classes, Women in Religion, and 20th Century Art II, back to back. Well when you're covering feminist art in your art class, and the gender inequalities of religion, you tend to get a little girl powered out. Dont get me wrong, I believe in equality, but even as a girl, I think a lot of the stuff is over the top. That's why i was so moved when I was looking for a poem for my American Lit poetry reading and found this rather lengthy, but somehow still interesting (to a self procaimed slow reading poetry hater) despite its length.

"The Lost Children"

"Two little girls, one fair, one dark,
One alive, one dead, are running hand in hand
Through a sunny house. THe two are dressed
In red and white gingham, with puffed sleeves and sashes.
They run away with me. . . But I am happy;
When I wake I feel no sadness, only delight.
That, somewhere, they still are.

It is strange
To carry inside you someone else's body;
To know it before it's born;
To see at last that it's a boy or a girl, and perfect;
To bathe it and dress it; to watch it
Nurse at your breast, till you almost know it
Better than you know yourself---better than it knows itself.
You own it as you made it.
You are the authority upon it.

But as the child learns
To take care of herself, you know her less.
Her accidents, adventures are her own,
You lose track of them. Still, you know more
About her than anyone except her.

Little by little the child in her dies.
You say, " I have lost a child, but gained a friend."
You feel youself gradually discarded.
She argues with you or ignores you
Or is kind to you. She who begged to follow you
Anywhere, just so long as it was you,
Finds follow the leader no more fun.
She makes few demands; you are grateful for the few.

The younger person who writes once a week
Is the authority upon herself.
She sits in my living room and shows her husband
My albums of her as a child. He enjoys them
And makes fun of them. I look too
And I realize that girl in the matching blue
Mother-and-daughter dress, the fair one carrying
The tin lunch box with the half-pint thermos bottle
Or training her pet duck to go down the slide
Is lost just as the dark one, who is dead, is lost.
And the hats that match, exists so uncannily
That, after I've seen its pictures for an hour,
I believe in it: the bandage coming loose
One has in the picutre of the other's birthday
The castles they are building, at the beach for asthma.

I look at them and all they old sure knowledge
Floods over me, when I put the album down
I keep saying inside: " I did know those children.
I braided those braids. I was driving the car
The day that she stepped in the can of grease
We were taking to the butcher for our ration points.
I know those children. I know all about them.
Who are they?"

I stare at her and try to see some sign
Of the child she was. I can’t believe there isn’t any.
I tell her foolishly, pointing at the picture,
That I keep wondering where she is.
She tells me, “Here I am”
Yes, and the other
Isn’t dead, but has everlasting life. . .

The girl from next door, the borrowed child,
Said to me the other day, “ You like children so much,
Don’t you want to have some of your own?”
I couldn’t believe that she could say it.
I thought: “Surely you can look at me and see them.”

When I see them in my dreams I feel such joy.
If I could dream of them every night!

When I sit and think of my dream of the little girls
It’s as if we were playing hide-and-seek.
The dark one
Looks at me longingly, and disappears;
The fair one stays in sight, just out of reach
No matter where I reach. I am tired
As a mother who’s played all day, some rainy day.
I don’t want to play it anymore, I don’t want to,
But the child keeps on playing, so I play."

I guess after all the manhating by the artists I was exposed to during my classes it was refreshing to read this poem. Yes at first it seems to tell ya tale of a mother and daughter, birth to adult, however, the poem is written by a Randall Jarrell. Yes thats right, it was a MAN who talked to sensitively about pregnancy and the fact that the little girl is all grown up.

This poem is by a man who served in the army during WWII. I just thought that it was so very interesting to see a man have a typical view of a daughter growing up as a woman. I guess I saw it as a response to the female superiority philosophies and art I've been exposed to.

The poem is so very touching in its rendering to begin with, the odd twist of the author only adds to its truth and sincerity.

Was anyone else shocked by the subject matter and the author, what do you guys think of the poem now that you can actually see the words? Would it have had more impact verbally if a male would have read it?