Discovery (The Story Behind My First Poem)

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Rest assured the story behind this poem, is not published anywhere else. The poem is published in a couple of Anthologies though, but because I’m adding to it, I hope it’s okay to share here. Discovery was the first poem I ever wrote, I had dabbled with song writing in third grade but mostly that was just takes on different songs I heard. My sophomore year of High-school was a difficult year, a teacher who hated teaching and took a special hatred to anyone who had physical or medical problems made certain of that. But this isn’t about that, it’s about a little boy no more than a year and a half , I found running in the streets, no parents around. There were cars coming so I did the only thing I knew to do, I grabbed him up, ran into the house and called the police station. I had never seen the little boy before that day, and didn’t know where he belonged. Discovery Infant eyes Infant ears Discovering the world, Colors of the rainbow Stars in the Sky Flowers, birds, bees, Grass and trees, Oh those infant eyes So small So bright So beautiful. (C) Michelle R Kidwell 1994 I would later write a couple of more poems about that experience as well as writing poetry about an eight year old Little girl I used to babysit, I was sixteen, at the time and this experience changed my life because she had a heart condition that could kill her. I was one of the few people her Mother trusted, she’d be in her thirties now if she got a heart transplant unfortunately I don’t know whether she did or not. Those years were about that, discovery. I was not yet sixteen when I wrote Discovery, And even now I see how appropriate the title was on many levels.