The most beautiful age of the heart
Today I wanted to talk about child love. About how we live love in our childhood, about how it feels to fall in love for the first time. In this love there are colors, sweet words, naivety, innocence. The stories of childhood loves remain there, motionless, in a small box that opens when the sky is cloudy or life leaves you empty-handed. No matter how many years pass, the love we live when we are children is remembered with a smile, never with sadness. I would like us to open that box that keeps the loves of our childhood. Let us begin:
I would like to begin with the poem Cuando pasas by the Colombian writer Jairo Aníbal Niño, which has been characterized by writing poems that remember our childhood and adolescence. I transcribe the entire poem:
When you pass,
a notebook falls off,
a foot stumbles,
the glasses slip,
his throat tightens,
a pair of sweaty hands,
he misses a scarf.
What happens
is that the notebook,
the foot,
glasses,
the throat,
the pair of hands
and the scarf
they're crazy about you.
The lyrical voice shows a frankness and sincerity that only children can have. In the first stanza of this poem the poetic voice speaks of what happens when it watches the person it loves pass by. We see that objects fall, break, but we also see that the hands sweat and that the throat closes, unequivocal signs of the state of nervousness of those who look. But if the first stanza shows us the behavior of the lover, in the second we see that he seeks to excuse that behavior with an unusual justification and hence the beauty of the poem: all objects are in love with the person who passes by. The fact of accepting, without any cover, everything that happens to us when we look at the loved one, is a brave and intense act, but it can create insecurity, hence the idea of blaming objects, inanimate beings who do not suffer from pain or rejection. It must be said that children do not express falling in love in the same way, but almost always they all take out their heart and carry it in their hands.
Another poet who has cultivated children's literature and who has captured the naivety of the children's gaze in her poetry is the Spanish writer Gloria Fuertes. Here is a poem as an example:
In the tree of my chest
there's a bird incarnate.
When I see you, it gets scared,
flutters, jumps.
On the tree of my chest
there's a bird incarnate.
When I see you, it gets scared,
You're a scarecrow!
This poem uses metaphor to express the feelings we have when we see the loved one. It talks about a bird that flutters full of life, that jumps and sings inside the chest each time it looks at the other. We know that the bird in the chest is the frantic beating, the unbridled heart, the accelerated pulsations. As in the previous poem, the lyrical speaker speaks frankly, without cowardice, of the reactions we feel when we are in love, but in the end turns the confession towards humour, a known way of hiding ourselves, of taking away the burden of the moment. In these two poems we can see the same formula: the confession of love; then the cowardice of not knowing what to do with what was said, with what is felt, undeniable behavior of a childish and inexperienced character.
Finally, I would like you to read the poem called Enamorados, by the Brazilian writer Manuel Bandeira, who has been known for writing about tenderness. I leave here a sample of his work and the subject we are dealing with:
The boy approached the girl and said:
-Antonia, I'm still not used to your body, to your face.
The girl looked sideways and waited.
-You know, when you're a chamito and suddenly you see a striped caterpillar?
The girl remembered:
-One stares...
Childhood toyed again in his eyes
The boy went on with a lot of sweetness:
-Antonia, you look like a striped caterpillar.
The girl opened her eyes wide, he exclaimed.
The boy concluded:
-Antonia, you're beautiful. You look crazy.
This beautiful poem contains the inability to express ourselves before the person we like, the shyness that can surpass us and the paralysis that we feel before the other. Sometimes we manage to get closer, but after that moment, the words get stuck, we don't know what to say and if we say something, it may not be the right thing to say or it's not what we really want to say. In this poem we see that there are two characters: a boy and a girl. The boy approaches the girl and tries to tell her how he feels about her, but he can't order his thoughts and what he says doesn't seem to make sense, or at least not the best. When he looks at the girl he exemplifies that observation with a childish memory: looking at a striped caterpillar. He starts from the idea of not getting used to the girl's body and face, so we understand that he talks about the wonderful transformation of the caterpillar into a butterfly. That last verse is the declaration of love and the attraction it feels, but it also uses, as in the previous poems, an exit mechanism for confession: "You look crazy". Strangely enough, these words, more than seeming to be an offense, give us an idea of the gaze of the lover and how delirious the other is.
Childhood gives us the surprise of seeing some things for the first time, of feeling them, of living them, but unfortunately childhood is not eternal. People lose a certain naivety, innocence with time and experience. Each age narrates wonderful moments. But there are loves that taste of chocolate, ice cream, first kiss, all the beautiful things in life.
Maybe in many years we will forget the lyrics of our favorite song, the name of some friends we no longer see, the address of a house visited, the date of an important moment, but we will never forget our first love, the one that made our heart a balloon of colors, that made our cheeks turn pink with sorrow, that made our hands sweat and to whom we wrote letters and poems.
I hope this reading has reminded you of your first love. Also remember to vote for @adsactly as a witness and visit our server in discord. Until the next smile;)
BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCE
http://jairoanibalninopoemas.blogspot.com/2015/09/cuando-pasas.html
https://culturainquieta.com/es/inspiring/item/10222-10-poemas-de-gloria-fuertes-la-poeta-de-corazon-inmenso.html
https://poemasamoryamistad.com/manuel-bandeira
Written by: @nancybriti
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Thank you!
Thanks for sharing, nice poem :)
Thank you for your comment, @lordnigel
A great job and very relevant for this month of love and friendship, @nancybriti. The images that complement it are beautiful and tender. Well, that's right, the first love is never forgotten and remains a trace of tenderness, sincerity and joy. That's why I loved Gloria Fuertes' poem because it sings of the innocence of child love, of the mischievousness of feelings that cannot be defined and of the fears that arise from the unknown. Thank you for this publication, @nancybriti and @adsactly for sharing it. For all happy days of love and friendship.
You defined it very well, @auorodivys: a love without greed, without malice, clean! Let's drink to all the loves that still remain so. Thank you for commenting.
Interesting post
Childhood life is a phase that is still pure in human life.
The age and nature of children are still very common when we begin to be interested in the opposite sex.
The way to express in the style of children is certainly different from the way adults. but writers with inner experiences that we also have together can express feelings of turmoil, shame, fear and anxiety while hoping that the expression of love gets a positive response.
And we can find out how the author described the beauty of childhood when he fell in love.
Innocence and a feeling of wanting to be a partner certainly become a burden when they want to express it. Let alone to say, when you see someone who is expected there is a feeling of fear, shame but great hope to always meet.
And you describe the feelings of children well. When I read, I remembered when I first expressed love to the people we love.
thank you @nancybriti
Thank you @adsactly
Thank you Steemit
Warm regard from Indonesia
Yes, although we grow up, we have the ability to remember and write what those childhood days were like: school, mischief, friends. Love at that time is like recreation, something we like, it amuses us and makes us happy. Thank you for commenting, @rokhani.
Beautiful! Upvoted and followed=)
Thank you, @elenya!
Hi ...Thanks for sharing this lovely poem .
First time loving someone or having crush on someone is the best feeling that anyone can have, & When it happens in early teenage ..., I can say that its True Love because there is No greediness, Its pure , Tender & innocent Love.
According to you, @luckkey . That's one of the most unforgettable experiences. Thank you for commenting.
An attractive series you promise us, @nancybriti; and this post confirms it. I remember a beautiful book by Fernando Savater that I read some time ago, entitled The recovered childhood, and some of it is what I felt when I read your article. To relive (to recover through affective memory and imagination) those unique moments of love when we were children. I really liked the three poems, especially the one by Manuel Bandeira, which expresses with ingenuity that shyness and a little nervous disorder that we experience before the person who attracts us, and even more so as children.
I appreciate your beautiful post, @nancybriti.
I think I'll look for that book by Savater, @josemalavem. I'd like to read it. Childhood, like many things in life, is a suit that we keep in our wardrobe. There are people who no longer have the suit, but others fit perfectly. Thank you for always commenting.;)
Hi, @adsactly!
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What a lovely & beautiful poem! you simply refreshed my yesteryears memories with this poem. Great Job
Beautiful and very tender the semblance you make of love in childhood, @nancybriti. The first love is a fact that we will remember forever regardless of the degree of "success" or "failure" that we have had in the realization of that delicate feeling and at the same time so imperishable in our memory until the end of our times.
I love the examples that you present in this publication of yours to point out the innocence, the naivety of the brats before that overwhelming passion that is love and that, even in adulthood, makes us act like children lost in the kingdom of the heart.
Thank you, girl in love, for this fresh breath that you bring us. Thanks to adsactly for posting it.