Washing down the marshmallows from The Sugar-Plum Tree ...
If this sounds like a puzzlement, enjoy my favourite childhood poem by Eugene Field,
Have you ever heard of the Sugar-Plum Tree?
‘Tis a marvel of great renown!
It blooms on the shore of the Lollypop sea
In the garden of Shut-Eye Town;
The fruit that it bears is so wondrously sweet
(As those who have tasted it say)
That good little children have only to eat
Of that fruit to be happy next day.
When you’ve got to the tree, you would have a hard time
To capture the fruit which I sing;
The tree is so tall that no person could climb
To the boughs where the sugar-plums swing!
But up in that tree sits a chocolate cat,
And a gingerbread dog prowls below -
And this is the way you contrive to get at
Those sugar-plums tempting you so:
You say but the word to that gingerbread dog
And he barks with such terrible zest
That the chocolate cat is at once all agog,
As her swelling proportions attest.
And the chocolate cat goes cavorting around
From this leafy limb unto that,
And the sugar-plums tumble, of course, to the ground -
Hurrah for that chocolate cat!
There are marshmallows, gumdrops, and peppermint canes,
With stripings of scarlet or gold,
And you carry away of the treasure that rains,
As much as your apron can hold!
So come, little child, cuddle closer to me
In your dainty white nightcap and gown,
And I’ll rock you away to that Sugar-Plum Tree
In the garden of Shut-Eye Town.
@theboxmanreturns I love your comment! Yes, he "knows I am there"...he's just taken marshmallows three times from my fingers on this evening alone! He's a regular visitor...eats a plate of cat food and then I give him the treats! No, he's not exactly a pet, but we sure enjoy his company!
Thanks dear Louise for you visits and you so nice comments on my mural pic.`s. It`s a temporary art exhibition done by the city counsel so I think they are payed for it.
The poem is great fun and goes so well with the image. It makes me think of this happy little raccoon who gets to hang out with fun people and eat marshmallows. The start of a children's story?
@taffy Love that you love this! Perhaps we should pass it to Junko to write as I know the kids love "the story" (as such) that I share with them! I'm surprised that more people haven't said they loved the works of Eugene Field who wrote so many children's favorites like "The Own & the Pussycat" and "Winken Blinken and Nod", for example. He was from St Louis; I'm quite sure Rosie would know all about this!
@salza@paulavdmerwe@pyrrhula@aikiuser@kerosene Thank you all for enjoying this little guy along with me! You'd laugh to see how carefully he takes the marshmallow from my fingers, and then *off he runs*...to return again soon for another!
I love the picture Louise and the poem is new to me , and fabulous. When I retired from full time advisory work I returned to teaching 2 days a week as I had missed it so much. I was in a class where the kids had to undergo National Tests in May. Most schools chose to go down the revise, revise, revise route using past papers. I always hated that as there was too much pressure on 11 year olds. Nevertheless they had to revise all the genres of writing as thar was one of the things they would be tested on. As a consequence I wrote a revision unit called Utopia. My class became astronauts searching for a perfect planet to live on. They wrote CVs and letters of application to get jobs, they explored the planet and wrote reports on what it was like; they wrote persuasive letters/ads etc to persuade settlers to join them; they wrote the myths of the planet and blogged about their journey. Lots chose to live on a planet where the Sugar-Plum tree would have grown. It was great fun and I taught all the other curriculum areas through it. We had the highest results ever! I wish I'd known the poem as we could have included writing poetry in our sessions!
@ceilidh Dearest Margaret! I can't tell you how much I LOVE getting such meaningful messages as this from people like you I've come to know and care about! 100% YOU are the educator today's children so desperately need! How wonderful to stimulate their minds and imaginations, taking them not only to new lands, but to be pioneers in new worlds! THAT's the creative thinking that needs to be kept alive by stimulating them! They're the hope for taking charge of the world of their future! Who can say how far the light from your flame will carry out within them! How fortunate those children are, and would that we could place "A Margaret Obey" in every classroom! And may I humbly suggest you at least briefly Google the name, Eugene Field, who wrote this poem, and see that, in America, I think he shares the same stage with perhaps-the-better-known Robert Lewis Stevenson of about the same era. ...and while your're doing that, I'm going into my art-room archives to see if I can't find my first calligraphy project in which I used this poem... ...no promises...I may have to clear away cobwebs! (but thanks again SO MUCH for your lovely letter! ♥ )
@kevin365 Thank you so much, Kevin! I love to see conversations unfold (as you can tell!). It's a gathering of friends... @elatedpixie@annied Thank you both! I thought I was sharing a poem with which everyone would be familiar! I'm delighted, in that case, to have introduced you to it!
I find i do know some of his poems but didn't link them to his name -
When I Was A Boy is a favourite and I remember Mother And Child and of course Wynken, Blynken, and Nod
Thanks dear Louise for you so nice words and sympathy. I found it always difficult to go on with life and 365 after . But like our King said to day, we straiten our backs and do n`t let involve our way of life by those terrible crazy man. We go on.
@pickerandagrinner Thanks, Louis! This image is part of an ongoing series with this little fellow who comes by nightly! Out of context as a first look (at caption) it probably seems quite odd, but thanks for coming by!
@tunia Thanks, Tunia! I've harkened back to that poem so many times over the years...a lifelong favorite!
Great capture!
@elatedpixie @annied Thank you both! I thought I was sharing a poem with which everyone would be familiar! I'm delighted, in that case, to have introduced you to it!
When I Was A Boy is a favourite and I remember Mother And Child and of course Wynken, Blynken, and Nod