The Sweet Gum

I saw this painting a few weeks ago and thought it was by Tanguy, one of my favorite painters, but come to find out, Kay Sage was the artist.  Find out more about Kay Sage below.  She's pretty neat.

Walked with the firsties over to the park this week.  To collect leaves and nuts and seedpods.  One little held my hand and walked along with me.
"I still have your song," she told me.  "I sing it every night."
I came in her room over a month ago and sang zippidy doo da, so I asked her if that was the one she was talking about.  It was. I was pretty flattered, but also a bit sad that I hadn't been back in a month to sing cool songs with the firsties.  "I'll bring more songs soon," I told her.
"You know those wooden benches?" she asked me.
I didn't know them for certain, so I just said, "Yes I do."
"Well that's where my father slipped with his slippery shoes and broke his arm really bad."
I asked, "Was that when he was a kid?"
"Yes, he broke his arm when he was a kid and then he grew up and had heart problems and he died."

So that was a little sad so I gave her a hug and some sympathy, but just then another little straggler who had been listening said, "My aunt was in a coma and then she had a funeral!"

Again, sad, but a little funny with the peculiar phrasing.  Soon I had a covey of little girls talking about cigarette smoking and lungs popping out.

Happily we got to the park and the entire group saw a huge tree branch had fallen in the middle of the field.  They all tore off to check it out with their cheap plastic magnifying glasses.  One firstie stayed behind, chuckling.
"What's funny?" I asked her.
Shaking her head, "It's just so funny that we keep asking these kids not to run and they just keep running."
"That is kind of funny I guess," I told her.  And then we started searching for artifacts from nature.  I was the only one to find a walnut.  We found a ton of those prickly balls but we could not remember their exact name.  Turns out, those come from the sweet gum tree.