Newsletter – February 27, 2026
Painting by Eugen Jettel
As I was writing verses to add to my collection of children’s poetry, I realized I had a longer poem I wrote about fifteen years ago that’d fit nicely into this treasury. It’s been sitting in my writing.com account where it attracted a dozen or so compliments, so I thought I’d share it with you here.
Emerson Aaronson Sat By The Sea
Emerson Aaronson sat by the sea
And when he grew up he wanted to be…
A fish from the ocean that flies through the water
Or an eagle up-soaring just like her dad taught her.
He’d jump in the air and flick fin or feather
Then float as he pleased in the very best weather.
Or maybe that’s not what he wanted to be,
He thought to himself as he sat by the sea…
A Tyrannosaurus would be loads of fun,
Stomping around in the afternoon sun.
No one would tell him what he had to do
Or what to eat or how he should chew!
But, maybe that’s not what he wanted to be,
He thought to himself as he sat by the sea…
The horses that ran on the beach were so fast
That Emerson knew he would just have a blast
With bucking and playing in waves and in foam
Then munching on apples when he trotted home.
Still, maybe that’s not what he wanted to be,
He thought to himself as he sat by the sea…
He thought about wanting to be the whole ocean,
The noise he could make with his watery motion
Would be just like laughing and splashing unending,
Emerson smiled with the joy of pretending.
Yet, maybe that’s not what he wanted to be,
He thought to himself as he sat by the sea…
He watched a man run with a dog by his side.
The thought of dog-loyalty filled him with pride.
What a great feeling to love and get petted,
A dog’s life was happy and never regretted.
Though, maybe that’s not what he wanted to be,
He thought to himself as he sat by the sea…
Emerson saw puffy clouds that were white,
Saw camels and flowers and even a knight.
To roll and unfold a new picture a minute
That was a life with a lot of fun in it.
And, maybe that’s not what he wanted to be,
He thought to himself as he sat by the sea…
He thought about soaring and floating and stomping,
He thought about running and playing and jumping,
He thought about splashing and being the sea,
He thought about clouds and of dog-loyalty.
Then Emerson knew what he wanted to be
And thought to himself as he stood by the sea…
“I want to be all of those great things in one
To laugh, roll and play in the afternoon sun,
Imagining all that I’m wanting to be
Can only be done by someone like me!”
This poem actually has stanzas alternating between two lines and four lines each, but for the life of me I could not figure out how to make this blog’s software recognize a blank line after a stanza.
It may be a case of Verse Discrimination, but it’d probably get defended as Un-poetic License.
TTFN
[I selected the painting above because it was done in the 1880’s and is in the public domain. Its title is actually “Boy Sitting by a River Bank” but I thought it captured the mood of my poem. I found it on Wikimedia Commons. Shout out to my friend Woody for suggesting this approach.]
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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles
Eric Margerum 