Where The Sidewalk Ends

Recently I was given a school assignment, and I had an option to write a blogpost about a poem that I found interesting. The poem that I want to analyze because I enjoy the meaning it has to me is called "Where The Sidewalk Ends" by Shel Silverstein.

There is a place where the sidewalk ends,

And before the street begins,

And there the grass grows soft and white,

And there the sun burns crimson bright, 

And there the moon-bird rests from his flight

To cool in the peppermint wind. 

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black

And the dark street winds and bends.

Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow

We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,

And watch where the chalk-white arrows go

To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,

And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,

For the children, they mark, and the children, they know

The place where the sidewalk ends.

I chose this poem because when I was in grade school, I remember choosing this poem from a book and memorizing it so I could recite it in front of the class with no paper in my hands. I still read over the words and can say many of them without looking, though do not hold me to that. I also chose this poem because it reminds me of my childhood. I makes me think of playing in the tall grass of my back lawns, and drawing on the driveway with chalk until my clothes were covered in it. I feel like I connect to the poem on a personal level when I read it because I can relate my childhood between the lines of it, but I also feel like I can connect it to the real world. These days, you do not see as many people playing outside in the grass, or dancing around outside with no care. Children are stuck inside, playing video games of some virtual world, not enjoying what the earth has given to them. It also connects to environmental and urbanization issues, because the lines "Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black; And the dark street winds and bends; Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow" show that there is a city that seems to be trapping the people of the planet inside of it. oblivious to what it does to our minds and what the city can do to the health of our planet. Some interesting things I noticed about this poem were the repetition of "We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow" and I also noticed the very strong imagery in the description of the "asphalt flowers" and the grass growing soft and white. It makes you have a different perspective, that maybe the world isn't as we see it. I personally feel like the poem is about choosing the right direction in our own lives, and making the decisions that suit us best. The arrow represents being pointed in the right direction and leaving the place we always knew is like us going off to university, or just leaving to live on our own and seeing the dangers that lie in the world around us. The poem is relevant to every child that is leaving home to become an adult. I personally feel a deep connection to this poem because I feel like it is a huge description of what me and my friends will be going through in the next month, when most of us move out of our parents houses and into residence at university, left to our own devices. The point of poetry is not to just be words, but to give words meaning into other peoples lives and change people's perspective and if we cannot have or make opinions of our own, can we change others?