March Thought: HILDA CONKLING

March Thought: HILDA CONKLING

I am waiting for the flowers

To come back;

I am alone,

But I can wait for the birds.

Hilda Conkling (1910-1986) was an American poet, born in New York state. Her father died when she was four years old, and her mother Grace Hazard Conkling (also a poet) raised Hilda and Elsa, her older sister (by two years), as a single mother.

Hilda composed most of her poems between the ages of 4-14 years, and doesn’t seem to have written poems as an adult. Her themes of plants and animals were interspersed in her poems about her mother and books. She released three poetry collections: Poems by A Little Girl (1920), Shoes of The Wind (1922), and Silverhorn (1924).