When I first started teaching—almost forty years ago—it seemed as if poems written by Aldis were included in nearly every general children’s poetry anthology that was available in my school library. Her poems still show up occasionally in anthologies today. One of David McCord’s favorite Aldis poems, Little, is included in Elise Paschen’s POETRY SPEAKS TO CHILDREN, which was published in 2005. (I just picked this book up the other day. It includes a CD with poems read by some of the poets.)
The following poems—Winter, Ice, and Snow—can be found in EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING, which was published by Minton, Balch & Company in 1927. Ice and Snow—renamed On a Snowy Day and with a few changes in wording—can also be found in THE SECRET PLACE AND OTHER POEMS—published by Scholastic Book Services about four decades later.
WINTER
The Street cars are
Like frosted cakes—
All covered up
With cold snow flakes.
The horses’ hoofs
Scrunch on the street;
Their eyelashes
Are white with sleet.
And everywhere
The people go
With faces TICKLED
By the snow.
ICE
When it is the winter time
I run up the street
And make the ice laugh
With my little feet—
“Crickle, crackle, crickle
Crrreeet, crrreeet, crrreeet.”
(How’s that for a little onomatopoeia?)
SNOW
The fenceposts wear marshmallow hats
On a snowy day;
Bushes in their night gowns
Are kneeling down to pray—
And all the trees have silver skirts
And want to dance away.
ON A SNOWY DAY
Fence posts wear marshmallow hats
On a winter’s day.
Bushes in their nightgowns
Are kneeling down to pray.
And trees spread out their snowy skirts
Before they dance away.
Which version of the third poem do you prefer?
To read more poetry written by Dorothy Aldis visit Mother Goose Caboose—Rhymes & Poetry.
