Read poetry during pandemic

During pandemic I have returned to poetry and, more specifically, to poetry written for children. Recently in this reading, I was stopped by a four-line rhyme written by Gertrude Stein more than 80 years ago. “I Am Rose” was published in The World Was Round, a children’s book.

I AM ROSE
I am Rose my eyes are blue
I am Rose and who are you?
I am Rose and when I sing
I am Rose like anything.

The first-person is a nine-year-old girl who, it’s suggested, struggles “to establish a stable identity in an unstable round world.” (Rita Smith, 2006) And there’s a bit of Rose in all of us. The little rhyme can be connected to the big idea of vocation; like Rose we often sense that we are most ourselves when we are doing that thing for which we have been especially gifted.