By Shel Silverstein

When I was young, I loved to go to “work” with my dad. Mind you, while he was really working, I was sitting in the old hay loft, writing and reading poetry. One of my all-time favorites was the collection of Shel Silverstein poems, and this one in particular:

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

For at the end of our driveway (not the sidewalk, but you see the comparison) is this beautiful Little Bluestem grass. It’s before the lake road begins, where the grass grows soft and whispery, where the sun burns bright, and the turkeys rest from their flight to cool in the lake-mist wind.

I didn’t know when I was 8 that I’d make my home in a place taken straight from my favorite poem.

Until we walk again …