Make the Morning

Three years of writing and art
by James Anatole Lindbloom, age 6

In the first years of Stone Soup we were very fortunate to publish poems and stories written by an extraordinary child. The works published in Stone Soup were dictated by James to his mother, the author Nancy Willard, when James was between the ages of three and six. All young children, at least part of the time, live in a world of magic.

Watch a young child playing a fantasy game and you wonder, where is he? Where is she? What do those eyes see? They see beyond this world into a world of rapid transformations, where what is is not the same for long, and where very small people often have extraordinary powers — at least for a moment.

The poems of James Lindbloom, which we collected together in a book titled Make the Morning, are a skillful poetic record of a child’s inner life.

James is now an adult.

We still have a few copies of Make the Morning. You may order it from us for US$15 (call us at 1-800-447-4569) or via e-mail to our subscription department. The book reproduces twelve poems, three stories, and several drawings, and was published in 1977.

Make the Morning

(written at age 3)

I want make it be dark
I want it way, way, way dark.
I gonna get bigger, bigger
and the whole world gonna shine
and I gonna be the sun
and there be lines on me
not any head, not any bottom.
I be a face and I be the dark
and I be the light
and I be the shining
and I be the sun
and shine the people
and they say, there’s the sun max,
make the big bird,
and he’s gonna ride in the train
and he’s gonna hold a little tiny baby,
he plays and frays,
and wash his face,
and plays trucks, and gacks,
and the whole world is proud,
me writing good stories.
I didn’t make it up,
it come from the sun.

Sheep Story

(written at age 5)

Today I went to a man who had some sheep
and I looked at one
and it was a magic sheep
and it had wings,
and the man said this was a very
precious sheep
so when my mom and dad
and the man who owned the sheep
were looking at a different one
I got on, just to see if it would carry me off
and then it went with its little legs outside
and flew up to heaven
and then it fell down, big bump on his head,
then the wings broke off,
his horns turned into a knuckle
his feet were crumpled
he walked on his nails
his neck was torn open
and that’s a very sad story
because he’s dead now.

Copyright © 1977 by James Anatole Lindbloom