You lightly caress my cheek
I’ve come to depend on the warmth
of your embrace
then you vanish
hidden
leaving me in the cold
in the gray
while you play hide and seek
in the thick marine layer
your reach diminished
no longer within reach
of my cloud cooled skin
leaving me bereft
pining for your healing rays
Come back to me spring sun!
Today #verselove prompt played on that question to teachers dread…did I miss anything? And I loved the opportunity to play with the idea of what was missed as I crafted a poem about my walk at the beach today. I hope my poem brings you along and gives you a taste of my energizing walk.
What You Missed
Today on the beach
you missed
the unfurling of tension
spooling from my shoulders
as I breathed in the briny sea air
that is still not quite spring warm
You missed
the tropical smell of sunscreen
on bared bodies
plunging into the too cold surf
laying on the too rocky shore
playing together in community
in this community treasure
You missed
the unending science lessons
as I studied the geology
of crumbling cliffs
and ocean-smoothed cobble
the biology
of velellas velellas
the not quite jellies
washing up on the shore
You missed
the pelicans
enjoying the low tide reef
and the pock marked rounded rock
a bowling ball for an octopus?
Luckily
I took my camera along
so you can enjoy my beach walk with me
It was serendipity that today’s #verselove prompt by Margaret coincided with an exploration of “Tiny Perfect Things” in my classroom today. We read the book by the same name and then picked a tiny perfect thing as the subject of our poetry. Students wrote some wonderful pieces–I wish I had jotted down some of their wonderful lines to share with you all! That will have to be another post.
My tiny perfect thing piece was inspired by a photo I took this week…of a dandelion growing in a crack in the road in my neighborhood.
Road cracked
dandelion rooted
roared
riotous
yellow blossom
bloomed
Take note:
live in possibility
turn lemons
into lemonade
find the silver lining
Inhale deeply
exhale a wish
for generations
seeds floating
whose dreams will come true?
What can we learn from a dandelion?
Today I wrote a poem from a poem–a found poem, that is. Dave at #verselove suggested finding a text to redact, to find a poem within the words already there. My mind immediately went went to a favorite poem of mine, one I always share with students (even if they are only 6!). So I took Naomi Shihab Nye’s Valentine for Ernest Mann and found a poem.
Poem Secrets
spirit says
poems tell secrets
sleeping shadows
drifting
before we find them
skunk eyes
re-invented
crawled and curled
give us poems
check the odd sock
you’ll know
Anna over at #verselove invited us to be inspired by a poet we shared a birth month with…but instead, I happened upon a poem by a wonderful SDAWP colleague poet that stopped me in my tracks. I highly recommend reading Everything Needs Fixing by Karla Cordero. There are so many lines that I loved…but I picked this line to inspire my (very short) poem tonight: …but what I’m certain of, is still,. the uncertainty of which tools repair the aging dog, the wilting snake plant, the crow’s feet under my eyes…
The busiest of days pushed me toward the shortest of poetry formats. I chose 17 syllables–a Haiku–to respond.
Fix This
seeking solutions
as the world turns, life happens
where is the tool kit?
Prime numbers, creating limits and brevity of language, a structure to build with. Many thanks to Erika at #verselove for a prompt that asks us to craft a poem that explores an abstract concept using lines built of prime numbers. I’m not sure that everyone will agree with me, but I see learning as an abstract concept–one that is hard to pin down and define. As one who spends all day with young learners, I’m constantly reminding myself to get out of the way and let the learners in my room do their thing. I’m not quite satisfied with my effort–and I really wanted to end up with a prime total. Maybe I’ll get some feedback that can lead me back in that direction!
Prime Learning
Define learning: Time for play, messing and making, hands in and hands on
like water through stone, it will find its way through to joy
explore, engage, express — get out of the way
if you let learning happen
pitched squeals of delight
in their eyes
wonder
An invitation to write a science poem–yes please! And the serendipity of our caterpillar sighting at school today made the perfect topic for the “whimsical science poems” at #verselove that Brittany prompted.
Life Cycle?
Caterpillar crossing
scrunch by scrunch
to the oohs and aahs
of its first grade audience
And then they notice the poop
on the picnic table and our eyes rise up
Fireworks explode
in a tree full of caterpillars
hanging
like tinsel
on a 1960’s Christmas tree
Will they be there tomorrow
or will they be
bird snacks
before
chrysalising
into blossoms
flying
egg laying
a new crop
of caterpillars
A life cycle continued
or broken?
I realized today that I forgot to post my poem for day 9. #verselove had prompted a poem that breaks rules–but instead my poem was all about the end of my spring break. I suppose since it began as a Haiku, it did break those rules along the way as well.
Break the Break
At the break of break
Songbirds trill, sun warms the now-spring air, breath flows in and out
I suppress the urge to throw the alarm clock across the room
Break broken
Emily (who happens to be from my writing project!) at #verselove invited writers to share something about themselves using Clint Smith’s poem by the same name as inspiration. Thanks for a great prompt Emily! I knew right away what I would write about–but it was much harder than I anticipated! Here’s my attempt:
Something You Should Know
is that the teenaged me bonded with Dad over
sprint cars as pit crew members
Squeezed in the back of the truck
nestled with the spare tires
on long road trips to the racetrack
Circles of speed
left turns only
going around and around
arriving nowhere fast
Rolling tires
topping off fuel
pushing the race car to the starting line
Dressed alike in white jeans and t shirt
as we traverse the muddy track
trying not to wipe grease stained hands
on those bright white pants
Life’s lessons:
watch your back
compete even if you can’t win
fitting in sometimes means standing out
and eventually you figure out what matters most in life
through the relationships built
watching cars drive around in circles.
Today’s #verselove prompt was “death in a poem” and I struggled. My mind searched for ways to weave the theme of death into something I could handle on this last weekday of spring break. You’ll not be surprised that I turned to nature. I was thinking about the difference in the way we describe landslides (or in our parlance, cliff failures) on the southern CA coastline as compared to the way that landslides were described in Zion National Park. There, the landslide was an expected way that nature sculpts the landscape. Of course, there were also not multimillion dollar homes perched along the rim that crumbled. So, I’m not so sure that this qualifies as death in a poem, maybe instead it is life in a poem. I chose to use an etheree–a 10-line form that begins with a single syllable and build, adding a syllable to each line until you reach the tenth line with ten syllables.
Cliffs
Erode
Fail daily
Crumbling downhill
Everything tumbling
Into a pile below
Erosion meet gravity
Cliff death creates new habitat
Algae covers what was once a road
In nature, death offers new beginnings
Thinking Through My Lens 