Here raindrops tap a daily rhythm
singing out
on windshields and foreheads
cooling and greening
I want to pack my pockets
with these watery tunes
hold them close
take them home
across the sea with me
Throw them high over my head
release them
let them
sprinkle
skitter
spit
saturate
slip
slide
soak
spray
splash
seep
sing out
offer
daily green
softly
warmly…
30 poems in 30 days? Here goes…
Thanks to Verselove for the inspiration.
I. Inside me flows
salty Pacific waters
always moving, never still
etching their way from
head to heart, calling
my name
II. Misty mornings wake me
dampen my face, painting
monochromatic shadows that
smell of sea funk
rust tracing the rivers
where salt spray never dries
III. Waiting for evening sky bursts
colors beyond imagination
when juicy languid reds trickle into
luscious oranges that tickle the nose
yellows so tart your taste buds pucker
sensory feast worth hungry gray days
IV. Inside me lives a liquid map
surrounded
by desert where fires flare,
water is precious, beauty goes deeper
than the eye can see
roots spread to quench their thirst
V. seeking connections
VI. My pen yearns for words
to plant seeds deep underground
to protect my lifeblood and yours
Earth’s waters
That flow in us all
A poem a day for 30 days, which also means I have read poem upon poem upon poem for 30 days. I’ve read poems to my students, poems written by my students, poems offered as invitations, poems written by others in this poem writing community. I’ve struggled with words, celebrated with words, thrown words at my notebook to see which stuck, deleted words from my digital pages (again and again and again), fallen in love with words, admired the words written by others, and amassed quite a number of words written. I’ve chuckled and giggled, gasped and wondered…and shed a few tears too. I feel like I know poets I have never met, connected with poets from other time zones and places, and learned to recognized poets by their style, their posting time, their poetic voice and the way they respond to my poems. My poet heart feels both empty and full at the same time, grateful for all the words and already missing the demand for still more words. Will I write tomorrow? I’m sure I will. Will it be a poem? Probably not. But then again, who knows? My email box offered up Georgia Heard’s May Poetry Calendar today along with explicit permission to write small. Who can resist that?
Month ends with a splash
words falling like confetti
connection through poems
Last week I came across a list of someone’s favorite children’s books of 2025 and was immediately drawn to If I Could Choose a Best Day. It’s a collection of poems that all begin with the word If, edited by Irene Latham and Charles Waters. I do love a great collection of poetry–especially a collection that includes living poets. I’m sure that no one is surprised that I needed to buy yet another poetry book to read to my students.
Before reading the book today, I had asked my students, as part of our morning message, what poem they might write if the poem began with the words If I… Their imaginations went right away to ideas like If I could fly… and If I met a unicorn…
After recess, it was time to read the book. (It had arrived on Saturday and I read through the poems over the weekend). Like Welcome to the Wonder House (that we read last week and I wrote about here), the book is organized into different categories of poems. They include: Everyday Magic, The Power of You, Kinfolk and Companions, and Anything is Possible. I read a variety of poems from each section. My students recognized poets we had read before and they noticed that all the poems began with the word If, but only a few began with If I. There were poems about pencils, poems about bikes, poems about birds, and poems about words. There were poems about friendship, poems about wishes, and poems about peace.
And then it was time for some writing. Under the influence of the possibilities offered by the word If, my students began to craft their own poems. I love when ideas pour rather than trickle. Ideas were flowing, but there was only enough time to hear a few students read an early draft. I’m hoping to have time to go back to these poems tomorrow.
So in the spirit of following the If… Here is my own early draft:
If the ocean were my bedroom
my dreams would be salty and big enough
to hold a blue whale
balancing the earth on a single puff of breath
before diving back into the depths of sleep
If the ocean were my bedroom
I would be lullabied by sea birds
and rocked to sleep by sea stars dancing on tiny tube feet
and wake
to the beauty of biodiversity
and possibility of interconnectedness
lessons learned in watery dreams
waiting to be lived
today
You’ll notice that I have not included a title for my poem. Stefani over at Verselove has reminded us today that titles matter and influence our reading of poems. Any suggestions for this one of mine?
Ducks in a row
meetings planned
appointments pointed
and then
POP
the crown detaches
quickly pushed back into place
but the damage is done
to the dental work
to the schedule
to the planning
to the roadmap of the day
Flexibility and patience
dance
do-si-doing along with frustration and overwhelm
carefully avoiding each others’ toes
Phone calls made
emails sent
schedules rescheduled
Ducks paddled
rows realigned
Hopefully the tooth
will be recrowned
tomorrow
so calm and order
will once again
reign
Traffic crawls
lot’s full
secret parking is not so secret today
a sea wall of humanity
lines my beach
(I’m not mad, everyone should have a relationship with the sea)
As I walk, the sea wall falls away
ocean whispers in my ears
untangling thoughts, urging my shoulders to drop
briny breeze tickles my nose
ruffles my hair
urging me to breathe in and out
in rhythm with the waves
whimbrel whistles
egret sways in the surf
crabs creep with their sideways shuffle
the wonder of wild creatures
wraps me in a cocoon of comfort
relieved and ready
to reenter
a peopled world
Sometimes Ocean roars in like a dragon, frothing and swirling, energy radiating from every salty drop, tossing boats, leveling cliffs, chasing swimmers to shore. Every scale and feather ripples in this self-induced storm, power is the name of the game. Other days Ocean is a mirror, calmly reflecting the world around, inviting bare feet, sand castle builders, and sunset seekers. Still waters run deep and Ocean is seldom still and often deep. Beneath the surface lies worlds unlike those we know on dry land. Curiosities are common. Ocean makes a home for the octopus who is a master of disguise, changing shape and color at will. Pelican skims the surf above, joined by its squadron overseeing the shoreline, pouches poised for a quick snack. Ocean reminds us that water is everything: power and life and home. Whether dragon or mirror, to preserve life on our planet Ocean requires our respect and protection. Now is our time to roar.
What happens when a list of random words become the inspiration for poetry? Today’s Verselove prompt was to generate some random words and use them to write a poem.
I googled words for purple and got an endless list of words that definitely seemed random–and not so purple. I picked out 10–somewhat randomly–and let my pen and my words create the path.
Here are the words: iridescent, lilac, exotic, polka dot, legend, zebra, wears, parchment, eye shadow, blackberry
By the Numbers
Tumbling dice conjure
visions of eyes
shadowed in iridescent lilac
bodies wrapped in zebra skins
exotic lifestyle
of the rich or the reckless
My numbers roll out
dressed in jeans and tennies
alarm clocks and speed limits
sets of 23
to match those 46 eyes
that polka dot my classroom every day
I count myself lucky
wearing ordinary
as a golden crown
bejeweled in blackberries
warmed by the sun of their smiles
marked in violet on life’s parchment
a legend in the eyes of children
Some days writing opportunities mesh, with one complementing another. Verselove offered a form today: an etheree. I’ve written to this form before (you can see an etheree about poppies here). And then on a network call this afternoon, I had an invitation to write in response to the National Poetry Month poster, with some lines from a Naomi Shihab Nye poem.
Here is my etheree:
This is the World
shared
you, me
together
this is the world
I want to live in
dancing to my own beat
feeling rhythms inside me
different from those you’re tapping
synched or syncopated, we can lift
each other, singing out tunes the world needs
I can’t resist a great bookstore or even a not so great bookstore. Wherever I travel, bookstores are always on my list of places to visit. I’ve been trying hard to stop buying books and use the library instead…because…you know…there is only so much space on my many bookshelves at home. And I’ve been better. I’m becoming quite good at managing my Libby app. But…I still can’t resist a visit to a bookstore.
So when today’s Verselove prompt was an invitation to tell a literary memory, my bookstore addiction popped into my head, compounded by my need to visit the local Barnes and Noble in my son’s town today. (And true confessions, I didn’t resist today!)
I’m Addicted to Bookstores
Breathe in the smell of new books
words floating in the air
tickling that part of my brain
that loves stories
intoxicating
Shelves stacked high
tables teetering too
like cairns of rocks
balancing fiction, poetry, nonfiction, biography, memoir
When is enough enough?
What number of books is the right amount?
Is it even possible to have too many books?
My fingers trace the titles I’ve read
characters whispering
their lines of dialogue in my ears
I see the one that got away
pick it up
to reread the blurb on the back
My library queue is loaded
but the covers cry out
tantalizing instant gratification
over the hands-off library wait
Can I justify just this one?
The one I read, then he reads, they read…
Even when I don’t buy
I still can’t stay away
from that
intoxicating
word-filled
wonderland
A playground for readers
like me
Thinking Through My Lens 