Camp Letter #10
My correspondence with my granddaughter in sleep-away camp
I wrote letters every day while my granddaughter was in sleep-away camp for the first time when she was eight years old. I was reading the wonderful book This Is A Poem That Heals Fish by poet Jean-Pierre Siméon (full details in the Table of Contents).
Here’s Letter #10
The watercolors on my stationery (couldn’t do them on watercolor paper for obvious reasons—wouldn’t fit in an envelope!). All, to credit where credit is surely due, are based on the gorgeous illustrations by Olivier Tallec (not tracings, but amateur attempts) in this marvel of a book. I’m hoping that my sketches and watercolors are getting better but trying is what counts, no? … and this: That Lila will know I’m thinking of her every day.
In the story, Arthur, who still can’t find out what a poem is to give to his fish named Leon and who, he thinks, is dying of boredom! Arthur’s not sure that Lolo’s answer or Mrs. Round’s answer is the right one—I love Lolo’s answer—so now we get old Mahmoud’s answer (in my letter; also, I shoulda written “lives” near Arthur— musta been in a hurry, oh dear!)
Mr. Mahmoud comes from the desert, dreams of palm trees.
I ask you, Can you hear the heartbeat of a stone when you read a poem? Do tell me which one! Let’s talk poetry!
Note: My granddaughter calls me Savta; thus the “Love, Savta” at the close.
Table of Contents for Letters To My Granddaughter Next: Letter #11 with watercolor
Love,
Yes, there are places that are so permeated with history that you can hear the stone's heartbeat, and that is poetry.
“A poem is when you hear the heart beat of a stone.”
Could Arthur’s searching and the answers he has found , be any more endearing, each one, surpasses the next.
I hear the poem sung by the water, in every rock I have sat upon, next to a stream.
Vermont? Me too!