It’s Poetry Friday and I am thinking, not for the first time, about stairs. This time, I’m celebrating that MY stairs – the stairs that take me down to the beach – are reopen, after being closed for months and months because of storm damage. Although I could still walk on the beach by driving about ten minutes down the road and accessing the beach from a different point, I have missed my spot, and have never been more happy to climb a set of stairs than that first time last week.
Thinking about stairs almost always leads to me this childhood favourite, from A. A. Milne:
Halfway Down
Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair
Where I sit.
There isn’t any
Other stair
Quite like
It.
I’m not at the bottom,
I’m not at the top;
So this is the stair
Where
I always
Stop.
Halfway up the stairs
Isn’t up
And isn’t down.
It isn’t in the nursery,
It isn’t in the town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head:
“It isn’t really
Anywhere!
It’s somewhere else
Instead!”
(by A. A. Milne)
I had forgotten this, but when I searched for a link to A. A Milne this morning, I found Robin the Frog’s version of this poem, and had to share. I remember loving this as a child – although Robin sounds so sad, and I feel the poem is more joyful.
Looking at the picture of my stairs you might forgive me for stopping and sitting half way, but I don’t. Sometimes, though, on the way back up, I do stop and stand and take one last deep breath of that air and that view – there isn’t any other view quite like it.
The Poetry Friday Roundup is live now at Teacher Dance. Head over there to step your way through more poetry goodness.
Sally, I often stop and look back at the ocean before leaving the beach. Soon my family will no longer have an ocean so close to us. We will leave inland in Virginia but maybe we will have stairs to another sight in the woodlands that will bring us joy. I felt your joy in sighting your ocean again.
Hooray for having your stairs back, Sally! Isn’t it amazing how one simple little thing like that make such a difference? Thanks for the Milne poem too!
I’m happy that you have those stairs back, Sally, with your view and the air! I love A.A. Milne poems & yes, Robin’s rendition is a bit sad, though I have thought it was simply a fun poem to ponder. Thanks for bringing good news to us this PF! Happy Weekend!
Thanks Linda. Always nice to have good news to share, but never more so than 2020.
So happy that you got your stairs back! Enjoyed the poem and video. Such charm and childlike innocence in those words. Robin the Frog is quite wistful, wasn’t he?
He is indeed, Jama. I seem to recall that this character was quite timid, so perhaps that’s what they were going for here – shy of presenting the poem?
We all should stop once and a while on our arduous climb, and just savor the view. The breath of fresh air wafts straight from your joy-filled post.
Thank you for climbing with me, Fran 🙂