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Early Writings By Lois Duncan
My Mother-
age 10
The Song of Life- age
12
Beach In Winter- age
13
Night Rains- age 14
Waiting- age 14
The Spinster-
age 15
Song of Frustration-
age 16
Child Moving Inland-
age 17
Love In March- age 17
The Time Before- age
18
My
Mother
written at age 10
The noon of life is warm and
deep
With all the joys that be,
And I shall have a man's love
To hold my heart for me.
The eve of life is still and
cool
And drenched with memories sweet,
And I shall have my little loves,
Playing at my feet.
But, oh, it is the dawn of life
With dreams so fresh and wild,
That holds for me my first love,
Who knows me as a child,
And when the night of life is
here
And stars begin to wane,
Then it will be my first love
Who takes me in again.
The
Song of Life
written at age 12
This is the song I am singing
tonight
When the stars are pale and the sky is deep.
It's a song I have learned from all things bright,
When the weeping laugh and the laughing weep,
When the dying live and the living die,
For something is singing that's stronger than I,
Like the sun or the rain or the earth or the sky,
While the sleeping wake and the waking sleep.
This is a song of forgotten
things,
The flowers of summer, the hush of the snow,
The millions of glorious, golden springs
That blossomed and faded and died long ago.
It's a song that was made when the earth was begun
Of the dances we dance and the races we run,
Of the laughter and tears that will never be done
And the millions of things that we never will know.
Beach In Winter
written at age 13
published in The Saturday Evening Post
The wind screams sharply against
the rocks.
The sky is heavy and hanging low,
And people who sprawled on the sunny beach
All packed and departed long months ago.
Here, where the gay umbrellas
bloomed
And tawny children built forts of sand,
There's only the wind to go walking now,
Alone and restless across the land.
Even the gulls have gone their
way.
The waves rise high in an icy wall --
For summer was millions of years ago
And probably never was real at all.
Night
Rains
written at age 14
The rains came down from the
hills tonight.
The wild rains came and, without a sound,
They woke the grass in the steaming ground,
And where they passed the streams grew wide
And tumbled down the mountain side
A river rose from out its bed,
And where the weary fields lay dead
Young green things came alive again
And lay there, laughing, in the rain.
From silent hills the rains came down
And fell all night upon the town
Where we lay, lost in careless sleep,
While valleys filled and seas grew deep.
Waiting
written at age 14
published in Seventeen Magazine
There was a night wind up from
the river,
Slipping through the rushes, breathing on the hill.
A night cloud covered the thin moon sliver,
(And I stood waiting where the trees bent over
And the air hung heavy with the scent of clover)
And the world was still.
So still.
There was a night wind down from
the meadow
Where the soft white daisies covered the ground
I stood waiting in the night cloud's shadow,
(Waiting for the tremor of a light foot's turning
To set the night into sudden burning)
But there was no sound.
No sound.
There was a night wind up from
the gloaming.
The night cloud slipped, and the moonlight played
On the silent path where the winds came roaming,
(And I stood waiting, although I knew
How deep was the night between us two)
And I grew afraid.
So afraid.
The
Spinster
written at age 15
There is the house where she
used to live,
And there, where the rambler roses run
Up the high porch posts, is the rocking chair
Where she used to sit in the morning sun.
And there are the shades that she used to draw
To keep out the dark when day was done.
And she was never lonely.
There is the patch of herbs she
grew,
Kneeling alone in the early spring
To break the ground still hard with cold.
And there, from the oak, hangs a broken swing
That was used by the children who lived next door,
(She always said they'd break the thing).
And she was never lonely.
There are the pictures she kept
so long
Secure in a frame above her head.
And there is the clock with the cuckoo bird
Who mocked as the hours came and fled.
And there is the dressing gown she wore
When she stretched herself on the half-warmed bed.
And she was never lonely --
She said.
Song
of Frustration
written at age16
published in Seventeen Magazine
Roger will call at 8:15,
This I know for a fact.
I know exactly what Roger will say
And just how Roger will act.
Roger's the dearest boy in town,
He thinks of me night and day,
(But maybe -- maybe -- Steve will call!
Please, dear heaven, that Steve should call!
If he happens to think of it, Steve might call,
And I mustn't be away.)
Roger will call at
8:15,
Never a moment late.
Roger is thoughtful and fine and sweet,
Really a perfect date.
There's always Roger, who's awfully nice,
(But if I sit home alone
Maybe -- maybe -- Steve will call!
If there's nothing better he just might call,
and, please, dear heaven, if he should call
I have to be near the phone!)
Roger will call at
8:15
As he always has before.
But if I leave it, the phone will right
The moment I'm out the door.
And so, I guess, I'll stay at home
And read a while in bed
(And wait and wait for Steve to call,
And tell myself, "He still might call!")
Though I know damned well he'll never call,
and I wish
that
I
were
dead.
Child
Moving Inland
written at age 17
(published someplace, years later, but I can’t
remember where—possibly Good Housekeeping)
We lived by the sea for so many
years
That she stopped noticing long ago
The swish of water against the rocks
And the cry of gulls when the tide was low.
She never heard, when she lay in
bed,
The sea wind whispering past our door
Or the constant murmuring all night long
Of restless waves on a sandy shore.
It's only since we have come
away
That we find her listening for the sea.
I think she never had guessed before
How strangely silent a night could be.
Love
In March
written at age 17
published many years later in Home Life
Falling in love is a kite in the
wind,
Tugging and straining to get to the sun,
Darting and dipping and doubling back --
"Is this forever? Can he be the one?"
Plunging toward earth as the
breezes go slack --
"Gosh, he's so quiet. He thinks I'm a bore.
No -- now he's smiling! He likes me again!"
Caught from beneath and sent soaring once more.
Falling in love is a hazardous
thing --
All of your dreams on the end of a string.
The
Time Before
written at 18
published in Seventeen Magazine
I am glad for the time before I
met you,
You who are so close to me now and so dear.
I am glad for the summers before you came,
For the long, golden summers before I knew your name
Or came to want you near.
I am glad for the times I walked
alone with my head high,
Dreaming secret dreams, glad to be alone --
Silly little dreams, but all my own.
I am glad for the love I gave
before my love for you,
For the hands I held, and for the young, sweet words I tried to say,
Thinking they were true,
Little knowing you would come someday
And sweep all other thoughts of love away.
I am glad for springs that
bloomed and broke,
And glad for laughter that we did not share,
And mornings when I stretched and yawned and woke
And rose to wash my face and comb my hair
Without a thought of you, glad of the tears
And smiles and thoughts and dreams that filled the years
That were my life before you came to be
So very dear to me.
Oh, I am glad for time in which
I grew
To be myself, glad that I walked alone --
Glad I can give you something of my own
Now that I am so much a part of you.
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I grew up in
Sarasota, Florida, the daughter of magazine photographers, Joseph
and Lois Steinmetz. I have one brother, Bill, who is three years
younger.
I was a shy little
girl, a bookworm and a dreamer. I had a lovely childhood, playing
alone in the woods and on the beaches. I don’t remember a time when
I didn’t consider myself a writer. I started submitting stories to
magazines when I was 10, and when I was 13, I started selling them.
My mother kept trying to turn me into more of a well-rounded person
by enrolling me in dance, piano and tennis lessons. None of them
“took.” I quit them as soon as I could. I just wanted to be left
alone to write.
But all that
changed when I reached high school! By age 16, I’d sold enough
stories to buy myself a jeep. Very few teenagers had cars back
then, so I suddenly became quite popular. I had a wonderful time in
high school! I continued writing for magazines, but I didn’t talk
much about it, because I didn’t want my classmates to think I was
“different.”
I must have been about 15
when this was taken at a high school football game. The boy with me
is my brother, Bill.
Here I am at age
16. Those were the years when teenagers dressed up for dances. And
all of us girls had “dance cards.” It was the boy’s job to take his
date’s dance card around and have other boys sign it. Then, when
the announcer shouted, “Dance Number Seven!” or whatever number it
was, the girls would look on their dance cards to see who their
partners would be.
This was my senior
prom, and that handsome boy was my senior-year-boyfriend, Sumner
Darling. (Yes, that was really his name, and he really was
darling!)
Oops! I can’t believe
it! There I am in the same outfit! I never cared much about
clothes. I just kept wearing them and wearing them until they wore
out.
Every year on
Senior Day, (which was usually April Fool’s Day), the senior class
at Sarasota High School had a costume parade. Following that, they
took the day off and went to the beach. When I was a senior, I
dressed up as “The Little White Cloud That Cried,” which was the
title of a popular Johnnie Ray song. (As you can see, I had my
swimming suit on underneath so I could head straight to the beach
when the parade was over.)
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