On the unbreathing sides of hills <br />they play, a specklike girl and boy, <br />alone, but near a specklike house. <br />The Sun's suspended eye <br />blinks casually, and then they wade <br />gigantic waves of light and shade. <br />A dancing yellow spot, a pup, <br />attends them. Clouds are piling up; <br /> <br />a storm piles up behind the house. <br />The children play at digging holes. <br />The ground is hard; they try to use <br />one of their father's tools, <br />a mattock with a broken haft <br />the two of them can scarcely lift. <br />It drops and clangs. Their laughter spreads <br />effulgence in the thunderheads, <br /> <br />Weak flashes of inquiry <br />direct as is the puppy's bark. <br />But to their little, soluble, <br />unwarrantable ark, <br />apparently the rain's reply <br />consists of echolalia, <br />and Mother's voice, ugly as sin, <br />keeps calling to them to come in. <br /> <br />Children, the threshold of the storm <br />has slid beneath your muddy shoes; <br />wet and beguiled, you stand among <br />the mansions you may choose <br />out of a bigger house than yours, <br />whose lawfulness endures. <br />It's soggy documents retain <br />your rights in rooms of falling rain.<br /><br />Elizabeth Bishop<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/squatter-s-children/
