NORMAN KLEIN - OUR WORLD OF FRIENDS

Norman Klein is an Iowa MFA who has taught all ages in the "Poets in the School Program." Also, like the children in the book, Klein is always on the move-- from UMass Boston to a decade at Harvard followed by an adventure to Chicago. That said, he currently lives and writes in the woods of New Hampshire.

​Our world of Friends

When I lived in the country 
one morning I saw an old man
step out of a rising sun onto 
the top of a hill and let the wind
carry his sun-yellow kite and
let it rise so fast I had to jump
to catch the very tip of his toe
to keep him from blowing away, 

and that’s why I called
him the sun man.  

When I lived in the country
one afternoon I saw a lady 
paint clouds onto a blue sky, 
huge lazy clouds that looked 
like grey elephants and smaller
sleeping sheep with puffy tails,
and when that was done she
chose colors for her sunset.

You guess what the colors were 
and what we should call the lady. 

When I lived in the country, 
sometimes my eyes would open
in the middle of the night, and I 
would go to my window to see
what I could see, maybe the dipper
in the north, or the three stars in a 
straight line, or the stars that were
not stars but Venus or Mars.

Some people say it’s a puppeteer who
uses invisible strings to run the universe. 
Maybe, but what do you think?  



When I moved to the city there were
no horses to snort and eat apples, 
or fire flies to put in pickle jars, 
but I like living on the 29th floor and 
looking down on the numbered roofs 
of busses, then riding them to the 
aquarium to visit the white whales,
basking sharks, chattering penguins,
and the dolphins dancing on their tails.

Have you ever been to an aquarium and
seen fish brighter than a rainbow? 

Next is the zoo, with its polar bears,
the kids train and merry-go-round,
the flamingos and chattering monkeys.
Right around the corner from the lions 
are the panthers, leopards, and rhinos. 
My favorite is the King Kong huge
gorilla who keeps watch over his  
kids and their gorilla mother.

Then there’s the museum where
Sue, the T- Rex lives with raptors,
and a whole hall of owls.

In the city I have new friends
that I play and pretend with, 
kids just like you who love it
when the sky man throws 
lightning bolts at our building 
and the thunder shakes our windows
and doors on the twenty 29th floor
and the stars flicker but don’t go out   

because the sky man and all his
friends won’t allow them to. 

​