I got into the footlocker recently, and found a tattered folder titled “My Poetry.” It contains the first poem I remember writing (published in my third post in this blog, last July) and I smiled to read that I remembered every word just the way I wrote it. According to the folder, it was composed the Halloween when I was 7 (1957) instead of the “6 or so” I guessed when I put up the post. I see that I was writing in cursive. However, the other side of the lined paper has a piece called “Our World’s Beginning” that carries a date of Feb. 4, 1959, so perhaps the dates are when I penciled the words on these pages, and not a record of original composition. I see that I illustrated the page with a dancer and an astronomical scene. I see that I misspelled the most important word of it: the title and first line contain “Balleriner.”

The third poem in the folder is delighting me today. The title is “Mr. Copper Penny And Miss Lady Dime,” and the date is April 25, 1959. That was the spring after we moved to California. I was newly placed in fourth grade. I wonder if I was into Robert Service then. Maybe. I remember reading “The Ballad of Lenin’s Tomb” to my class a year later so it’s possible I was already under his narrative influence.

Mr. Copper Penny And Miss Lady Dime

Once upon a time
There lived a copper penny
Whose owner’s name
Was Mr. Denny.

One day Mr. Denny
Spent his shiny copper penny
On a present for his
Little baby boy.

Out went the register.
In went the penny.
Out came a toy,
Held by Mr. Denny.

But who was in the register?
Why little Lady Dime.
And what did Penny say to her?
He said, “Will you be mine?”
Lady Dime said, “Yes.”
That’s the end of this rhyme.