S6 E11:: Up in the Air: A Poem, a Mother, a Memory

The Swing
by Robert Louis Stevenson

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside—

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown—
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

When I was a child, my mother Frances taught me “The Swing” by Robert Louis Stevenson. It was the first poem I ever memorized, the first one I spoke aloud to a listening room, the first time I learned that words could lift a child, quite literally, into the air. I recited it proudly, again and again. People clapped. I felt tall.

What I didn’t yet understand was that something deeper was happening. My mother was not simply teaching me a poem. She was teaching me attention, rhythm, wonder. She was showing me that language could hold joy, that imagination could travel beyond walls, rooftops, and gardens — and that a child’s voice mattered.

Now Frances lives in long-term care. Our conversations have changed, but our connection has not. She still speaks to me, sometimes in words, sometimes in presence, sometimes in memory. And poetry still stands between us, steady as ever.

When I listen to this recording from a few years ago, I hear more than my own voice. I hear her encouragement. I hear the evenings when poetry was something shared, not explained. I hear the beginning of a lifelong love. 

This reposting is for her. For the mothers who read poems aloud. For the children who learn them by heart. For the way poetry keeps swinging, back and forth, across time.

Thank you, Frances. You were my first mentor. You still are.

Rebecca

Music by Epidemic Sound

Eternally Yours by David Celeste

https://www.epidemicsound.com/music/tracks/895d4ff8-cdd6-3141-95d1-791d8159b82c/