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POEM
My Daughter’s Question

W. Clyde Tilley

“What kind of doll is this?” she asked.
“Is it real or just a toy?”
Her question took me by surprise!
Since I had been a boy,
The years had swept that line away
I used then to divide
My playthings into these two sorts
With some on either side.

To my mature and “grown up” mind,
No doll is ever real.
They’re all just toys for children’s play.
At least, that’s how I feel.
But in her simple child-like world
The two were not the same,
And her question simply let me know
I played a different game.

She made me wonder once again
About the games I play.
Are things I take to be so real
Just toys? And may someday
A higher world come settling in
Upon the life I prize,
Just as my present world replaced
The world of children’s eyes?

W. Clyde Tilley is a poet from Seymour, Tenn.

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Last modified June 29, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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