I don’t remember when I fell in love with wildflowers
Maybe it was when
I danced to the music of wild mustard
forehead to forehead
with great blue heron clapping the beat
Maybe it was when
the chorale of poppies
sang out the orange
a song I can’t help
but sing along
Maybe it was when she told me
I’d find globe lilies
at the second bench
and they bounced in the breezes
of Mt Diablo valley
I don’t remember when I fell in love with wildflowers
but today
I fell in love
all over again
Today’s Verselove prompt was an invitation to look closely–something I find that my camera helps me do. So after a stroll through my camera roll, I found my inspiration.
Slow Motion
Fireworks explode
in greens, blues
purples
painting the sea
in still life
motion
in motion almost imperceptible
sea stirred
I remember
to slow down
and channel
my inner anemone
sunbathe in the shallow salt
water
soak up the sun
let the sea stir me into motion
And, when no one
is looking
throw out sparks
that bring
color
to the world
I’ve written scar stories, I’ve had my students write their own scar stories, but when Bryan’s scar prompt came up this morning at Verselove, I just kept thinking about my good fortune in this life.
Instead of my own scars, my mind immediately went to a student that I didn’t get to help this year. Time with me was too brief, attendance too sporadic, and eventually fear won and my student was gone. I can only imagine the resulting scars for this child and this family.
Both Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone and Margaret at Reflections on the Teche posted poems using a form they called a shadorma: a six-line poem that follows a 3/5/3/3/7/5 syllable count. To keep myself focused and constrained, I used this structure for today’s poem.
Immigration Policy Fallout
scarred learning
at only seven
fear impedes
permeates
school: expensive luxury
erasure of hope
Dave’s prompt over at Verselove about travel is actual lived experience at the moment. And as often does when travel is involved, the day got away from me. Here is my small offering…a piece that may (or may not) develop during the course of the month.
Roadtrip
Pack the car
snacks galore
(which we never touch)
Are we traveling
or moving in to stay?
Today’s Verselove prompt comes from Denise. She encouraged us to borrow some rhyming words to craft a poem of our choice.
Rhyme is one of those techniques I mostly stay far away from. Rhythm, yes. Word play? I’m in. But rhyme challenges me–it feels too forced or too trite or just too obvious.
But in the spirit of trying and working to craft something meaningful, I turned to Emily Dickinson and her very well known poem, “Hope” is the Thing with Feathers and borrowed some rhyming words–as well as using her title as inspiration on the slant for my title.
An afternoon at the Monterey Bay Aquarium under the influence of the sea–both inside the aquarium and outside in the wilds of the magnificent Monterey Bay provided the content: jellies, the giant Pacific octopus, the grumpy looking moray eel to name just a few.
Hope Unfeathered
In depths of blue
another world appears
breaths unbodied
inside out tears
Spiraling within an octopus soul
rages a tentacled suctioning storm
transformational power of the rainbow
a palette of colors from cooling to warm
Some float and bob
unnoticed unheard
hope unfeathered
fantastical creatures, marine mammals, and birds
Under the spell of the sea
wild wet weirdly wonderful
I splash in the mystery of extremity
so much to explore–just the ocean and me
All this month I have challenged myself to write a poem and post it here…AND I have been working with my young students, creating opportunities for them to write poems in lots of different ways. I’ve been inspired by poets at #verselove who have offered daily prompts and thoughtful feedback to my mostly first draft poems. So on day 30, what would I offer my students…and myself as impetus for composing?
Today we headed back to Grant Snider and his book Poetry Comics. (You can read a mini book review here and a bit about Haikomics here). I read them the four “how to Write a Poem” pieces from the book and we talked about what advice we might give aspiring poets. Grant recently wrote a blog post teaching his readers how to make a poetry comic. When I read his post, working my way all the way down to the end I found my own students’ Haikomics featured there! So after reading Grant’s blog post and showing my students all the ideas he shared about how to create a poetry comic–I also showed them that some of their poems were a part of his post! (That definitely created a lot of excitement!)
With all of that as inspiration, I invited students to write their own poetry comics–maybe even a “how to write a poem” poem. And they are off and running! Unfortunately, creating a poetry comic takes a bit more time…I’m hoping we can get them finished tomorrow.
Of course I wrote with my students…and I, too, need more time to get the comic bit completed. But I did take some time to revise my poem when I got home today…and will share the words that hopefully will become a poetry comic with some work with my students tomorrow.
How to Write a Poem (with first graders)
Dip into lots and lots of poems
swim in the language
play in the wonder of words
Notice the pitter patter of ideas
tap dancing like raindrops on the roof
like dew drops slipping off the leaves
Soaking into childhood’s wild fresh colors
unleashing a sky full of rainbows
Settle in the moment
and wait…
poets will bloom
Today’s #verselove prompt was to “sound off,” but honestly, on a busy Saturday after a busy week, I simply needed a space with the sound off. So I decided to riff on that idea for today’s poem.
Sound Off
Today I need the sound off
to tiptoe through clouds of silence
listening to echoes
of nothing at all
Sound off
vibrations stilled
hearing only the words inside
my own head
And in that quiet
inspiration speaks
in colors muted and soft
a masterpiece
heard only by one
Some days less is more–and this is one of those days for me. #Verselove suggested a where I’m from poem, but at the end of a long day, a where I’m from Haiku is where I found myself. (Inspired by the black sage in full bloom on campus right now)
Where I’m From
My nose knows black sage
fragrant, earthy purple blooms
marks this place as home
The night sky was the inspiration that Kevin offered the writers at #verselove today. He shared Ada Limon’s poem, In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa and it was the line, “still, there are mysteries below our sky” that caught my attention and sent me to my beloved ocean. I found myself remembering wandering the night beach and oohing and aahing as the waves crashed with the florescent light of bioluminescence, creating a private fireworks show right in the sea.
Rewrite the Ocean
Oceans conjure
sunny skies, umbrella drinks, coconut body oils
and a hint of salt as you lick your upper lip
When the sky drops
and orange and red dances across the horizon
darkness descends
In the black of night
the magic of living chemistry
millions of microscopic creatures
light up the sea
Each crashing wave
a sliver of bioluminescent day
in brilliant greens and turquoises
Night sky rewrites the ocean
slows time with dramatic pauses
as it paints the inky seas
with light
Day is for sunbathers
vacationers
swimmers and beachcombers
Night is for dreamers
igniting wonder
deeper than earth’s vast
waters
I love small poems. Those deceptively simple compositions that are packed with possibilities of layered meaning. I also love that they invite my young students into their mystery.
Today we read 16 Words William Carlos Williams & “The Red Wheelbarrow” by Lisa Rogers & Chuck Groenink and learned about this well-known poet and his famous short poem. We studied The Red Wheelbarrow and students were ready with their noticings. They counted those words carefully–yes there were 16 (at least the way it was written). They noticed the four stanzas and that each stanza had four words. They noticed the color words and felt that the line “glazed with rain water” was a bit metaphorical. (It also brought to mind donuts–got to love the literal interpretations from first graders!)
I handed out post it notes–it worked last week–small paper for small poems. And they set off with a mere five minutes before they needed to head off to their reading groups. We came back to our poems after lunch. Some students wrote several (I have plenty of post-its!) and all wrote at least one.
Here’s the one inspired by donuts
a sweet donut
with raining sprinkles
is waiting for someone
to pick it up
chomp
Many of my students continued to be inspired by sports
balls flying
like blue birds
flying in
the air
flies into a brown
kids glove
And the one I fell in love with (I’m sure I didn’t write like this when I was in first grade!)
little bits
of sky fall
down on my
face giving
it a small
cool nature shower
And my own poem is trying to conjure spring. There are hints here and there, but the pervasive marine layer is back–something that brings out the complaining in us Southern Californians!
spring wildflowers pop
yellow
when the sun
shines
after many rainy
days
my heart sings
joyfully
Thinking Through My Lens 