Child on Top of a Greenhouse
Roethke's greenhouse poems are delightful, except for some reflections of his difficult childhood. Here is a well-known jubilant greenhouse poem, as jubilant as the smile on young June's cute face in the photo!
Child on Top of a Greenhouse:
The wind billowing out the seat of my birches,
My feet cracking splinters of glass and dried putty,
The half-grown chrysanthemums staring up like accusers,
Up through the streaked glass, flashing with sunlight,
A few white clouds all rushing eastward,
A line of elms plunging and tossing like horses,
And everyone, everyone pointing up and shouting!