Silver Pennies

Silver Pennies
Edited by Blanche Jennings Thompson

One of my favorite collections of poetry. I decided on a reread when I was unpacking boxes of books. I found copies of this at Borders a few years back - bought myself and my older sister a copy. My mom used to read us all of the fairy poems when we were kids and she has an older copy of this book.

I gaped a bit when Amazon had it listed as 61.00 for a used copy!

Anyways, I wanted to share a favorite poem from the book. It was my older sister's favorite - she had it memorized when we were in elementary school. There's a tree like this on a road near my old apartment and my husband and I would pass it on the way home Sunday nights from his parents'. It always reminded me of this poem:

Strange Tree

Away beyond the Jarboe house
I saw a different kind of tree.
Its trunk was old and large and bent,
And I could feel it look at me.

The road was going on and on
Beyond to reach some other place.
I saw a tree that looked at me,
And yet it did not have a face.

It looked at me with all its limbs;
It looked at me with all its bark.
The yellow wrinkles on its sides
were bent and dark.

And then I ran to get away,
But when I stopped and turned to see,
The tree was bending to the side
And leaning out to look at me.

-Elizabeth Madox Roberts
p. 39, Silver Pennies


5/5 Roses


Read more of the poems in this book here.