A Poem created out of a Conversation

A few days back, my son and I were sitting together, wondering what he could recite in an upcoming poetry competition. Being 5 year old, he knew only nursery rhymes. But the poetry competition I had enrolled him into was for the age group 5 to 8 years, so nursery rhyme would not have been the best choice for such a show. 

While my son and I were surfing the net and pondering over the idea of which poem we could select, my son turned to me and said, ‘Mamma, you make my poem.’ As a mother, I have often been in situations wherein my son expects me to be a super-hero from one of his fantasy books, who can just about make anything possible. But, this suggestion particularly looked interesting to me as I had attempted my hand at poetry long back, but had never really written for small kids. 

I asked him next, ‘So what should be our poem on?’

‘Dinosaur,’ said my son enthusiastically. 

Dinosaur has been one of the most talked about topics in our house since he turned 2 years. The first words that came out of my son’s mouth were not the commonplace objects around the household, but words like ‘Tyrannosaurus Rex,’ ‘Diplodocus,’ and ‘Stegosaurus.’ In fact, impressed with his obsessive interest in dinosaurs, we had bought a book on ‘Dinosaurs’ from the Kingfisher Reader series, which had become his bible at that time. He would ask us to read all the pages over and again, watch the pictures intensely, ask us lot of questions, go to sleep with the book, wake up in the morning asking for that book, and so on. 

During the same time, on the other hand, we, as typical parents, following all the milestones of our son, were a little anxious that he was falling behind in his language skills against his 2.3 year old peers as far as day-to-day conversations were concerned. In fact, we once brought it up with his paediatrician also. 

After listening to our concerns, the paediatrician had turned to him and asked, ‘What do you like?’ 

My son immediately replied, ‘Dinosaurs.'

‘What’s your favourite toy?’

‘Diplodocus!’

The paediatrician had laughed, asked us not to worry, and assured us that he would start speaking within a few months. Indeed, he turned out to be a chatter-box from the time he turned 2 year 9 months. 

While we were busy in our exercise of choosing a poem, I looked at him and asked him next, ‘Which dinosaur?’

‘Diplodocus.’

I nodded, ‘And what do you want me to write about him?’

He said, ‘All the things about him ... like he is big, tall, herbivorous .. has a small brain, chews stones to digest his food.’ All this knowledge is encrypted in his mind from the book that he listened to and slept through like a bible as a toddler. 

With my son, sitting next to me and we both discussing about diplodocus, the following poem was created. 

My pet animal

I have a dinosaur,

big and strong.

He has tall legs

and a tail very long.

He is a diplodocus,

huge and fat.

His brain is

smaller than a rat.

His neck goes up

high in the sky.

He is smart

but sometimes shy.

He eats leaves, 

trees and ferns.

Food is all

for which he yearns.

He swallows stones

to digest his food.

I play with him

when he is in a good mood.

The poem turned out to be simpler than I would have meant it to be. But, I respected my child’s sense of pride and accomplishment in the way the poem shaped up with my restricted intrusion. He recited it very confidently and passionately in the competition. As a mother, I will cherish this piece of work all my life for my son's creative contribution to it.