Free A Maze Me by Naomi Shihab Nye Page B

visible to you. That’s what I started learning when I was twelve, and I never stopped learning it.
    Every year unfolds like a petal inside all the years that preceded it. You will feel your thinking springing up and layering inside your huge mind a little differently. Your thinking will befriend you. Words will befriend you. You will be given more than you could ever dream.
    â€”N AOMI S HIHAB N YE
    San Antonio, Texas, 2004

Rose
    A very large spider
    wove her fancy web
    between the Don Juan rosebush
    and the Queen’s Crown vine.
    We greeted her every day
    going in and out.
    We had so many destinations
    but she just swung there
    in the air
    in the day’s long stare
    that grows so hot by four o’clock
    we boycott the whole front yard.
    By evening we’d be outside again
    breathing jasmine
    watering honeysuckle
    plucking mint
    and she’d be wrapping
    her little flies and wasps
    in sticky sacks.
    The trolley rang its bell at us
    and we waved back.
    It was nice living with Rose.
    Living our different lives
    side by side.
    One night wild thunder
    shook the trees,
    the sky crackled and split,
    the winds blew hard
    and by morning
    Rose was gone.
    Did she wash away?
    Did she find a safer home?
    She keeps spinning her elegant web
    inside us
    so long
    so long
    after the light made it shine.

Mystery
    When I was two
    I said to my mother
    I don’t like you, but I like you.
    She laughed a long time.
    I will spend the rest of my life
    trying to figure this out.

Ringing
    A baby, I stood in my crib to hear
    the dingy-ding of a vegetable truck approaching.
    When I was bigger, my mom took me out
to the street
    to meet the man who rang the bell and
he tossed me
    a tangerine . . . the first thing I ever caught.
I thought he was
    a magic man.
    My mom said there used to be milk trucks too.
She said, Look hard, he’ll be gone soon.
    And she was right. He disappeared.
    Now, when I hear an ice-cream truck chiming
its bells, I fly.
    Even if I’m not hungry—just to watch it pass.
    Mailmen with their chime of dogs barking
    up and down the street are magic too.
    They are all bringers.
    I want to be a bringer.
    I want to drive a truck full of eggplants
    down the smallest street.
    I want to be someone making music
    with my coming.

Toys on the Planet Earth
    We need carved wooden cows, kites,
    small dolls with flexible limbs.
    I vote for the sponge in the shape of a sandwich.
    Keep your bad news, world.
    Dream of something better.
    A triangle mobile spinning in the wind.
    Furry monkeys hugging.
    When my dad was small,
    his only toy was an acorn and a stick.
    That’s what he told me.
    So he carved the acorn into a spinning top
    and wrote in the dirt.
    And that’s what made him
    the man he is today.

Every Cat Has a Story
    â€œBritish researchers found that a sheep can distinguish and recognize as many as 50 other sheep’s faces for up to two years, even in silhouette.” (NEWSPAPER REPORT)
    The yellow cat from the bakery
    smelled like a cream puff.
    She followed us home.
    We buried our faces
    in her sweet fur.
    One cat hid her head
    when I practiced violin.
    But she came out for piano.
    At night she played sonatas on my quilt.
    One cat built a nest in my socks.
    One inhabited the windowsill
    staring mournfully up the street all day
    while I was at school.
    One cat pressed the radio dial,
    heard a voice come out, and smiled.

Visiting My Old Kindergarten Teacher, Last Day of School
    She’s packed the brown bear puppet
    in the cupboard and distributed
    the Self-Portraits with Hats.
    I remember those.
    She says, “You look just the same
    but bigger! I would know you anywhere!”
    I would know her too.
    Someone’s crying.
    He doesn’t like the little holes
    in the corner of his painting
    from hanging on display.
    I help her gather stubs of crayons
    from the table grooves.
    Do the plans she made on the first day
    seem far away
    as pebbles dropped into a stream?
    The ones whose names