I’ve been a wordphiliac for a very long time. I remember tearing open my birthday gifts on my 9th birthday to find a copy of “Where the Sidewalk Ends” by Shel Silverstein. I couldn’t have been happier to receive that collection of poems even as my cousins taunted me for being such a nerd. In their world, a little kid who got a book as a gift was not happy about it.
I’m remembering that day, because April is National Poetry Month. And I remembering the poem the book was titled after.
Where the Sidewalk Ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.
And I’m remembering searching for that place where the sidewalk ends where the world was different, better than the one I lived in. Where I could do anything and everything I wanted. Where kids ruled and there were no rules.
Needless to say, I never found the place where white grass grows but my search for the place where the sidewalk ends has not stopped, although my vision of it is a little different now. When you grow up believing in a place where the sidewalk ends it’s not so hard to imagine a place where every human is free and has access to clean water, education, and health care. A place where you can trust the food you eat and the air you breathe. A place where nature is respected and protected. A place where the dollar bill isn’t God and what’s on the inside matters more than the outside. Yeh, like a said, my vision of the place where the sidewalk ends is a little different now.
