On Poem in Your Pocket Day my students carried an original poem and a published poem they had studied in their pocket to share with friends and adults around school today. Although I have heard many of my students’ poems, I heard some I hadn’t yet heard as they shared theirs with me today. And as always, poems inspire poems…and Jameson’s clock poem inspired my writing today. Here’s his:
The Clock
Tick tocktick tock
moving every second,
every minute
and every hour.
Watching,
looking
tick tock
observing.
Looking at action,
moments
and memories.
Jameson
And my own:
Time
Time
ticks and tocks
a metronome
playing life’s rhythms
tapping the beat
insistent, urging
march, dance, move!
Time
stands still
frozen in terror
disbelief
or the monotony of boredom
clock hands
stubbornly standing in place
Time
races
evaporating like morning fog
gathering clouds of seconds
raining down
in the urgency of time lost
Time
hovers
nagging at the edges of consciousness
a stern taskmaster
demanding attention
Time
lingers
like sweet kisses
or the taste of chocolate
reminders of precious memories
Time
slips and slides
tomorrows become
yesterdays
creating a roadmap of the past
made up of everyday minutes
tick, tick, ticking
Time
Douillard 2018
We’re in the waning days of our 30-day challenge. What will inspire today’s poem?
Thinking Through My Lens 
And mine (thanks, Jameson)
—-
I find myself
in a strange
zone of time,
making rhymes
with friends
from tomorrow,
today;
where yesterday’s
words
seem to skip
across the imaginary
border lines
of the world —
invisible boundaries
where the hands
of clocks
dance to the tune of
the moon’s rising —
I write, in the here and now,
to let this poem
become the pillow
on which you might
dream.
— Kevin (thinking of how collaborations across time zones in the world make for strange writing experiences)
Thanks Kevin! It is so motivating for my students to know that their words matter and influence the thinking and writing of others! I appreciate you taking the time to read and write with us! (And I love your time poem!)