Paper Boats

The poem is spoken by

The poem is spoken by a childlike speaker who floats paper boats down a running stream every day, one by one. The boats are carefully marked with the

The speaker hopes that someone

The speaker hopes that someone in a strange land will find the boats and know who he is.

The speaker loads the boats

The speaker loads the boats with shiuli flowers from the garden and calls them blooms of the dawn.

The speaker looks at the sky

The speaker looks at the sky and sees little clouds setting the white bulging sails. The speaker imagines a playmate in the sky who sends the clouds t

At night

At night, the speaker buries the face in the arms and dreams that the paper boats continue to float under the midnight stars. In the dream, fairies of