Nursery

Blue, green, orange, brown, and yellow – 
a symphony of colour, a sensory delight. 

How warm the red is, 
and the blue – how cold! 
With green, you must wait, let time pass you by. 
With pink, you must laugh – it’s not hard to see why. 

Whether the room is square 
or has eight sides 
makes no difference, 
because home 
is something you carry in your heart. 

You are a snail-child, 
carrying your house on your back. 
You fill the eight-sided room 
with circles, spirals, 
with transparency, 
with outside and inside. 

You, everyone – you, everyone – 
with poo in every language, 
and “sorry” in every language, 
and milk and water in every language, 

and sugar – 
yes, with sugar on top – 
even though they say sugar 
isn’t too good for you. 

But just imagine 
if sugarcane grew here, 
if we could taste it, 
take a bite of that sugary plant – 
and if there were mangos here in the garden, 
bananas and mandarins, 
and twenty orange trees! 

Then, well – 
we’d be talking about something completely different. 
Tell me, is that a parrot 
at the top of that tree over there? 

And watch the windows, 
because snakes can sneak their way in, 
and grasshoppers hop in through the cracks. 

And what about sea pens and seahorses? you ask. 
Of course – now we’re talking about an ocean! 

Illustration: Gunnar S. Gundersen (1921 – 1983), arkitekt Arne Korsmos (1900–1968) barnehage tilknyttet jubileumsutstilling for Oslo arkitektforening, Nasjonalmuseet. Foto: Nasjonalmuseet / Andreas Harvik