16. Questioning [100 poems challenge]

16.          Questioning

When you are eight the world is a wonderful mystery,
And all that needs to be known resides in the wisdom
Of aunties and teachers, Cub leaders and parents.
You’ll eventually learn that the answers they give
Are, perhaps, not aligned with the facts
Or mirror their ignorance and not true reality;
But, until then, seek your revenge in advance
And drive them just a little insane, asking
How, what, when, who … and—best of all—why.

5 May 2013

Comments: I’ve been a Cub leader, teacher and auntie, and I love kids’ questions, but I’ve been driven slightly nuts—in the nicest possible way—when the queries have been coming at me from multiple directions or in quick-fire succession from a single source. Fortunately I do enjoy answering kids’ questions. Of course, any resemblance between my answers and the truth is sometimes a fluke (and sometimes negligible), but I don’t think I’ve ever claimed that the Great Wall of China was built to keep the rabbits out (see this Telstra ad).

I have noticed that, unusually, quite a few of my poems have a tercet structure (sets of three lines), which I’ve done rarely if at all in the past. There are no tercet rhyming schemes at this stage, however … but there are plenty more poems to come.

Themes to come: 17. Blood; 18. Rainbow; 19. Grey; 20. Fortitude; 21. Vacation

Explanation about the 100 poems challenge here.