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Teaching Children to Sighfor Mary HallTo tell it from a cry you say that it comes long after the crying, or far before, and not in waves washing over with big voice, but smaller, the breath being larger than the sound and without tears. Though it takes more time, boredom may be the perfect object lesson. Keep them sitting and staring at nothing but your grownup face while you drone on about the physiology of a sigh. Have them hold their tongues. You could explain that suffering from love is like missing mama or long hours waiting in a train station. If you have orphans let them teach the others that it sounds like whatever is missing may never be found. Repeat the myth of Sisyphus or have them hum to Penelope's unweaving. They could study the lives of people who accomplished nothing. It helps to blow descending scales on an oboe and for rain to be streaking down the window and for recess to be cancelled. Sometimes it seems they'll never get it right -- producing puppy's whining or mute exasperation, and you get discouraged and so do they, and just when you announce It comes easier with age, wait until you're older, you hear the sound. |
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Issue #8, April, 1999 :
Santa Fe Poetry Broadside.