come with me…I shall give you something and take you somewhere

The Animal Family by Randall Jarrell

Is there anything so nice 

As curling up 

With a lovely book

A cup of tea

And something sweet…

*

Seven chapters long,

Reminds me of a week of days

How much longer it must have taken than that to create the tale,

To watch it become more than mere words

Illustration by Maurice Sendak

The mother, the father and the boy

Were shipwrecked on a deserted island

Time passed

As time does,

Whether there are clocks to mark it or not.

The mother passed

The father passed 

And, the boy was alone

But, he was no longer the boy

He was the hunter now

*

Evening after evening 

Her soft voice 

Called him to the shore

And to her song

Where the alone of him

Met the sea of her

And 

Lapped at his heart

As waves that wet the sand

And make it their very own

So, the mermaid 

Who had spent her whole life 

Swimming away from things

Left her watery world

To be with the hunter

In their island home

Now, they were two

*

Time passed 

As time does

And the hunter found the cub

The baby who would grow to be the brown bear

The hunter brought him home

The sticky honey loving bear 

Who curled up by the fire to sleep

Now, they were three

*

Time passed 

As time does

And the hunter found the kitten

The baby who would grow to be the lynx

The hunter brought him home

The playful purring lynx 

Who loved to give you somethings 

And get you to go to somewheres 

Now, they were four

Time passed 

As time does

And the lynx found a boy  

Who would become The boy

*

But, for now 

He was a crying baby in a shipwreck,

On that self same shore

Where the hunter had once been the boy in the shipwreck 

Where the calling song was sung

Where the mermaid left the sea

And the hunter had carried her home

Yes, that self same shore

With the heart-lapping waves

So with the help of the bear,

The lynx brought the boy to their home 

The one overlooking the sea

The hunter, the mermaid, the bear, the lynx and the boy

Now, were five

Just as one head, two hands and two feet

Are five

Held together by home and by heart

*

Time passed 

As time does..

…in every line of the tale

There was the whisper of the waves

On the shipwrecked island shore

Singing the song of belonging

Of

The boy, the lynx, the bear, the mermaid and the hunter

Who lived and loved

Who loved and lived

As time passed

As time does

For now and for evermore…

There were no a’s in this tale 

As an a could be anyone

Any hunter, any mermaid, any bear, any lynx, any boy

And there were no anyones in this tale

There were only someones

*

There were no names in this tale

But, names were not needed

Nor were they missed

I knew each someone well

As well as they knew each other

*

The hunter only ever hunted for one thing really,

What do You think it was…

And which The are You…

*

I recently read The Animal Family by Randall Jarrell.   This is my own retelling of it and how it came to find a home in the heart of me. It’s a charming story written in 1965 with a few very sweet illustrations by Maurice Sendak.  At the library it is shelved in the children’s section, and that is where it found me…

****

ellie894 October 14, 2019

Jarrell, Randall. The Animal Family. New York: Pantheon Books, 1965