A place where I'll post up some thoughts and ideas - especially on literature in education, children's literature in general, poetry, reading, writing, teaching and thoughts on current affairs.
Friday, 31 October 2014
New poem: Museum
We were on holiday in the country and just
outside a village we were going through we
saw a sign that said, ‘The World’s Best
Museum’. I said that I thought it strange that
if it was the ‘world’s best museum’ we hadn’t
heard of it. And anyway, why would it be
here? That made everyone angry, and they
said that there must be something wrong with
me to be put such a downer on everything.
So I said, fair enough, let’s go. We went down
several country lanes and over one of those
level crossings that everyone worries about
and got to a house that stood on its own
next to some woods. The sign outside just
said, ‘Museum’. It didn’t say what it was a
museum of. There were no lights on and it
was just beginning to get dark, so I said that
I didn’t think anyone was in but the others
said there may be and that was me putting
a downer on things again. So we knocked on
the door and quite quickly a woman came out
and asked us if we had come for the wood. We
said that we hadn’t. We had come for the
museum. She looked a bit puzzled for a moment
so I said,‘The sign. The Museum.’
‘Ah yes, the Museum,’ she said, ‘the Museum.’
She said to follow her through the house and
out the back. In the garden there were some
sheds and she said, ‘There you go.’
We moved forward, a bit hesitantly, and went
up to the first shed. I pulled at the door and it
came open after a strong tug. Inside it was
dark, so we gathered around the doorway and
looked in. I could make out a sign on a shelf at
the back of the hut. It said, ‘What do you reckon?’
The little one said, ‘What does it say?’
I said, ‘“What do you reckon?”’
She said, ‘I don’t know.”
I said, ‘I don’t know either.’
Then the woman from the Museum said,
‘What do you reckon?’
And I said, ‘Do you mean, what do I reckon
with “What do you reckon?” or do you
just mean, “What do you reckon?’
She looked at me and said, ‘What do
you reckon?’
The little one said that she didn’t like
it. I said that it looked like there were
more sheds we could go in but the others
said that there wasn’t much point.
I said that this time it wasn’t me putting
a downer on things.
They said, ‘Never mind that.’
The little one said, ‘We don’t have to
go through the level crossing on the way
back, do we?’