The Drummer

Someone asked me this morning if I ever wrote for children... Over the years, yes, absolutely.  I used to write curricular poetry for students about everything from Newton's laws of motion to punctuation marks and many things in between.  Then there's the little tiny woman who lives in my pocket...though, granted, I've never actually written down those stories...only told them. The story of the woman who was visited by the wind...Thanksgiving poems written to be performed...  Yes, I have written for children.  

There was something, though, about the timing of this morning's conversation... 

I came back upstairs to my room and instead of working on translations, this came forth...

THE DRUMMER

Who are these kings

and what do they bring?

Look at their bags and boxes.

Watch their step

and look at their eyes

What do they see in the distance?

What is the Wonder

that draws them onward

under the sway of a star?

Where is my place?

I want to go too…

Though I don’t know what to offer.

I have my drum

my simple drum

my drum pa rum

pa pum pum…

The kings, they stopped!

They heard me play!

Do I go…or do I stay?

Oh…I can’t stay back

I want to know

who it is they seek

and where they will go.

Tell me the story, Kings!

Mother, Father, and a humble birth,

a child come a-wailing upon this Earth

to be for us God-with-us, Immanuel.

We travel with incense, myrrh, and gold

And what of you, now that we’ve told?

I looked at them from where I stood,

squared my shoulders and took down my hood.

“I have my drum. I’d like to come.

And I will play along the way

and I will play when we arrive

and I will play for Love alive.

Upon my drum, my drum

pa rum my drum

pa pum pum.”

Come, said the Kings.

Make your gift known.

Offer the fruit

of what Love has sown….

—Kimberly M. King, RSCJ—