This is a bit late but it’s still Saturday somewhere, right?
This is a poem about a little girl I saw in Joy France’s “not a shop” arts space in Affleck’s. Manchester.
If you’re in the area do check it out!
“The world is your oyster, child!”
Encased by paints and glues,
Glitter and pens and props
You freeze, confused.
The rules are not the same here.
The art is free for everyone to make
You don’t know how to choose.
“The world’s your oysterchild”?
Big siblings smile and nod
At you, you feel included, older,
Part of the gang, it’s odd:
The rules are not quite like the ones outside
The world may well be something young and strange…
It’s alright here to take a path less trod.
Protected by an iridescent shell
Of glitterpens, and props and paint and glue,
This seabed where we listen and we tell
Our inner lives. Our secret, dancing dreams.
We take the grit the world will throw at us
And make pearl after pearl, pearl
after pearl.
“The world’s yours, oysterchild.”
Tom Juniper Poetry 