It’s the last week of the semester. So, while I attempt to write two papers in as many days, finish my portfolio, and somehow get ready to go camping this weekend (seriously: what was I thinking?), here’s a poem I like by Dennis Lee, from Nicholas Knock and Other Poems (illustrated by Frank Newfeld, published by Houghton Mifflin in 1974, as groovy a hippy-child book as you could want).

A Song for Nimpkin

Nimpkin
  Nimpkin

Dance with
  Us,
Till our

  Lives
Go
  Luminous.

When the
  Slush is
In the
  Street,
Nimpkin
  Touch our
Soggy
  Feet.

Feed the
  Headlong
Green, in
  Case
We do not
  Leave it
Living
  Space.

Till the
  Green
World
  Gallivants
To the
  Voltage
Of your
  Dance.

Through the
  Swelter
Of
  July,
Nimpkin
  Soften
Earth and
  Sky –

Dancing
  Like a
Fallen
  Tear,
Deeper
  Into
Now and
  Here.

Please, in
  Autumn
Apples
  Fall,
Fruit and
  Leaf and
Earth and
  All:

Nimpkin
  Nimpkin
By your
  Grace,
Help us
  Live in
Our own
  Space.