roots of darkness

Is it my imagination, or does this December feel even darker than usual?  Perhaps I am listening too much to NPR news and too little to Amahl and the Night Visitors as I attempt to bake enough to feel that things are properly festive.  Or perhaps, like so many of my pangs and twangs, it's a function of age, and I should let this fullness come.

Solstice Chant | Annie Finch

Vines, leaves, roots of darkness, growing,

now you are uncurled and cover our eyes

with the edge of winter sky

leaning over us in icy stars.

Vines, leaves, roots of darkness, growing,

come with your seasons, your fullness, your end. 

    Wishing you and yours a bright and warm Solstice season....step into the pool of light that is Poetry Friday over at Buffy's Blog today.

almost

It's Day 73 of kindergarten and in some ways our large paper calendar grid and all the ways we mark it are routine--and yet for many 5-year-olds, time and its rate of passing remain mysterious.  Yesterday Eliana was the Afternoon Leader, whose job it is to write the date, continue the pattern, and add a straw and a penny and a dot on the ten-frame to count the days of school.

I have the holidays matter-of-factly marked on the calendar but am politely declining to engage in any conversations about Santa, etc.  Just as for most of October and Halloween, I keep remarking that it's still a lot of days until Winter Break--it's not "almost Christmas yet in Room 166," and we don't have an elf on the shelf.  But next week we'll start our Gingerbread Man work and I won't be able to hold it off any longer! 

At dismissal as she waited to be picked up, Eli considered the calendar and said, with a question in her voice, "My sister says it's almost Christmas."

Almost

My sister says
it's almost Christmas,
almost, nearly,
close to here.

What is almost?
All those boxes
full and empty--
is it near?

Today is 12.
There's 25.
We have an elf
up on the shelf.

He is watching.
I am waiting--
watching too,
just like the elf.

Almost, nearly,
close to now?
I have to wait,
I know--

but how?

HM 2014
all rights reserved

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The roundup today is with my new friend Paul at These Four Corners.  Welcome to the hosting gig, Paul! 

hair of the dog

http://msfindlater.blogspot.com/2013/05/playing-with-poetry.html

I've got the sweetest hangover, and I can't shake it.  It's two full weeks since NCTE and I'm missing the pleasure and positivity of being with poetry people.  The cure is traditional: hair of the dog that bit me.
......................................

first…

a promise of poets

preparation of poets

a packed-up perambulation of poets

a pop-up of poets

pronouncement of poets

a purplypinky profusion of poets

and then….

a perusement of poems

proclamation of poems

a pepperpiquant percolation of poems

a patter of poems

a pageant of poems

a plentiful participation of poems!

HM 2014

all rights reserved

More pleasure and positivity over at Booktalking with Anastasia today!

Addendum:  If you were at the CLA Breakfast and heard Jon Klassen talking about I Want My Hat Back, you will enjoy this poem by Nathan Hoks!