Happy International Women's Day! To celebrate, I thought I would share a poem that my maternal grandmother had saved years ago entitled, "What Is a Girl?" I never my grandma but from the stories I’ve heard, she was a force to be reckoned with. She put herself through college (the first one in her family) and became a teacher and a mother. Before I even read this poem, I knew it was going to special. If my grandma wrote down anything, it was because it was important to her. Upon reading, I could see why. It's so endearing and beautiful -- the epitome of who my grandmother was. I immediately fell in love with it and I think you'll enjoy it too! Let me know what you think in the comments below!
What Is a Girl?
A girl is a charming and wonderful being
In T-shirt or dress trimmed with lace,
A lover of dolls and of little stray kittens
A creature of beauty and grace.
A girl is a fountain of bubbling laughter,
With pigtails or gay bouncing curls
She loves her crayons and pennies and ribbons
And loves to share secrets with girls.
She likes to play house with some other small “mothers”,
Or run down the street jumping rope
Or climb on your lap for that extra story
She’s a lover of tea parties, ice cream and candy,
Of paper dolls, mud pies and pets,
Of sandpiles and roller skates, makeup and dancing,
And every new doll that she gets
A girl is a mixture of imp and of angel,
Of wonder and sudden surprise,
With a women’s enchantment and magic and vision,
With stardust and faith in her eyes!
Update: I believe I found who the author of this poem was - Charlotte B. Johnson. She composed it in the 1950s when her daughter was a little girl.
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