The Irish poet Brendan Kennelly was born on April 17, 1936. Some of his poems remain in my top 100 favourites, including for example Poem from a Three Year Old, which I have often read to my daughter.

Poem from a Three Year Old

And will the flowers die?

And will the people die?

And every day do you grow old, do I

grow old, no I’m not old, do

flowers grow old?

 

Old things – do you throw them out?

 

Do you throw old people out?

 

And how do you know a flower that’s old?

 

The petals fall, the petals fall from flowers,

and do the petals fall from people too,

every day more petals fall until the

floor where I would like to play I

want to play is covered with old

flowers and people all the same

together lying there with petals fallen

on the dirty floor I want to play

the floor you come and sweep

with the big broom.

 

The dirt you sweep, what happens that,

what happens all the dirt you sweep

from flowers and people, what

happens all the dirt? Is all the

dirt what’s left of the flowers and

people, all the dirt there in a

heap under the huge broom that

sweeps everything away?

 

Why you work so hard, why brush

and sweep to make a heap of dirt?

And who will bring new flowers?

And who will bring new people? Who will

bring new flowers to put in water

where no petals fall on to the

floor, where I would like to

play? Who will bring new flowers

that will not hang their heads

like tired old people wanting sleep?

Who will bring new flowers that

do not split and shrivel every

day? And if we have new flowers,

will we have new people too to

keep the flowers alive and give

them water?

 

And will the new young flowers die?

 

And will the new young people die?

 

And why?

 

This poem is so nostalgic of my mothering. My daughter asked similar yet different questions, but more than the questions themselves I remember the earnestness of the young questioner, and her then desperate need for answers to the mostly unanswerable.

Tonight at dinner, our conversation reflected that of two adults at different ends of the spectrum of lived experiences. Now 17, she still questions the ‘why’ – as do I – but she has become more accepting of the unknowable.

Kennelly believed that ‘Poetry can come from anywhere – unlike the novel, unlike drama, which require perhaps human experience; poetry has in it a kind of child wonder.’

I would like to believe that my grown up daughter continues to carry that child wonder within, that her ‘whys’ of life will continue to be asked, and that her questions will not be beholden to answers.

Happy birthday, Brendan Kennelly.

 

CQ