Today I’m taking part in an unusual kind of blog tour–highlighting a poem that was considered but not in the end accepted for the fabulous US-published children’s poetry anthology One Minute till Bedtime, chosen and compiled by prominent US poet Kenn Nesbitt. It’s the idea of well-known children’s poet and fellow Australian contributor to One Minute till Bedtime, Jackie Hosking–an unusual way of highlighting the poetic richness that’s out there!

The poem of mine that’s been chosen for the anthology is called Seagull Beach Party, and you can read it in the anthology–but this one, Windmills, though it wasn’t chosen, is still one I am pretty happy with! It was inspired by seeing heaps of the ‘white giants’ on a visit to Scotland.

Windmills

by Sophie Masson

The giants on the hill paddle in bright air,

Eddies of fine cloud flying everywhere.

A gust of wind excites them as they gather in the crop;

A sunny stillness quiets them, their arms go slow, then stop.

In humming rows they stand,

White giants across the land,

Waiting for a breeze to blow,

Waiting for a chance to show

They can thresh the wind without a care,

And harvest and mill the breath of air,

To turn into heat and light,

Far away and out of sight.

In humming rows they stand,

White giants across the land,

Looking across the seas,

Waiting for the breeze.