Today I pulled out the paint chips poetry box and spread paint chips all over the counter (face down). Students picked out 3, wrote the descriptive color words at the top of their notebooks and got ready to write! There were a few challenging words (thistle, cumulonimbus, potpourri) and when one third grader pulled pinot noir I suggested he go ahead and trade that word in. The words push students in interesting directions, although most end up not really featuring color.
Today’s rain kept us indoors–and listening seemed to be locked outside the classroom. Maybe that was another reason for the direction my own poem wanted to go. I pulled the colors/words: smoke signal, graphite, and potpourri And here is where my brain took me:
Learning to Listen
Somedays communicating
feels like sending
graphite-colored
smoke signals
that disperse in the breeze
of talk
Listening is under-evolved
ears hearing only the echo
of self-talk,
lost in the potpourri
of loud, colorful words
Today I’m building a fire
that we must tend together
you read my smoke signals,
I read yours
as we strengthen our listening ears
tuning in
to the subtle graphite sounds
listening like owls
like wolves
like we care what is said.
®Douillard
Thinking Through My Lens 