#everybrilliantthing

 

Browsing around today I came across Irene's list of little things to be grateful for.  June has been a hard month, in a #firstworldproblems kind of way, but as Irene says, "Nothing like a little gratitude to pull one from a funk, right?"  So I'm taking antifunk action with this list of 30 brilliant things that have visited me in June:

1 rabbit rabbit

2 lentil soup by the case

3 my son cooking pasta

4 taking political action

5  Squeals on Wheels

6  tomato blossoms

7  a compliment from my daughter

8  flip-flops

9  digital everything

10 Kindergarten End of Year Program

11 blowing bubbles

12 poppin tags at the Goodwill

13 Pride

14 floaty summer dresses

15 kind colleagues

16 my parents

17 the beach

18 knowing the answer

19 laughing till you wet your pants

20 Chesapeake Bay Bridge

21 The 14th Annual Summer Solstice Picnic

22 cardboard boxes

23 nectarines

24 k.d. lang

25 when good sense prevails

26 when love wins

27 donation pick-up trucks

28 my minister

29 bumblebees on the "weed" flowers

30 US Women's Soccer team  

It was harder to choose than to think of things.  That's my first brilliant thing for July.

clutterlove: striped socks

Once again it is my last day of school, only this time it's the last day of packing all my STUFF into boxes for a move upstairs to 2nd grade.  It was not my choice, and although I have nothing against 2nd grade, I didn't realize until this week that much of my horror at the suggestion was directly related to the amount of STUFF I would "need" to move.  I  have counted neither the boxes I packed nor the hours spent packing them--the totals would be burdensome even to you, dear readers.  Further contemplation of my difficulty in lightening the load of STUFF in my life will come later.  For now, let us consider the socks.

Sockenzocken

Deliciously striped,
you came to me--free, a
donation!--punched from stalwart
cardboard, with your glossy orange
miniature clothespins and your
fetching green striped sock monster.

For five years you were
scattered and matched and
scattered and stacked and
trodden and scratched and
lost and found and
as I hold you in my hands (all

but two of your little clothespins
popped and gone; your less-stalwart
storage box long since crushed by
a size 12 Velcro sneaker and replaced
by Dollar Tree plastic), I can not
let you go.

I wrap you tenderly in a ziplock bag
and place you in a hastily taped
carton, for who knows what purpose
may yet be found for your delicious
stripes? Tomorrow morning at 4 am
I will awake knowing that

it is your time, socks:  your blessings
have been bestowed, your cunningly
combined colors have challenged
plenty of 5-year-old eyes, and it is
my time--to steel my heart and

let you go. 

© Heidi Mordhorst 2015

  

****************

Now, multiply that story times literally hundreds of who-knows-when-I'll-need-it objects, and then pass me a beer to wash down my B-complex stress supplement. 

There is much trouble with poetry over at Carol's sodden little Corner.  I'm late to the party today but it usually lasts all weekend...see you there!

the last half day

Due to a curious solution to the problem of too many snow days, our school year ended at 12:30 on Monday.  We finished everything important on Friday, and I had hoped just a little that maybe no one would come on Monday--but they did, and we found lots of nice ways to fill that last few hours (including giving everyone one last chance to count to 100, an assessment I had forgotten to squeeze in--just as well they all came!).

And then they were gone.


Sometimes a meager harvest

The last half day--
walls stripped, treasure bags packed,
Jim Joe jumped one last time;
gifts given and received,
farewell hugs ceremoniously
hugged, fast and earnest,
because we'd run out of time again
one last time.

Now the room  is hollow, dead--
nothing living but the teacher and
a single valiant sugar snap vine,
three feet high and climbing
a string up the Weather Window.
On the one vine, at the top, hangs
a single beautifully formed,
pleasingly plump green pod.

Teacher steps out of her sandals
onto a low chair and up onto
the radiator, plucks the fat pod
full of peas she forgot to share
and eats it, all by herself--
one last sweet crunchy mouthful
swallowed alone in the classroom
on the last half day.

HM 2015
all rights reserved

***********************
Mary Lee herself is rounding up remotely at A Year of Reading today.  Go get yourself some farmyard fun and lots of poetry goodness from around the Kidlitosphere!

things to do if you are the roundup host

Hee.  I don't really have a  post today, but I wanted to point anyone passing through that Buffy Silverman's host-post today features her own "Things To Do If You Are" poems.  She was inspired by Elaine Magliaro's Things to Do poem in Falling Down the Page, and Elaine was originally inspired by the great Bobbi Katz, who as far as I know originated the "Things to Do" form.

Oh wait--I do have a post!  Here's one of Bobbi's early Things to Do poems, from her book Upside Down and Inside Out: Poems for All Your Pockets (1973).

Things to Do If You Are a Subway || Bobbi Katz

Pretend you are a dragon.
Live in underground caves.
Roar about underneath the city.
Swallow piles of people.
Spit them out at the next station.
Zoom through the darkness.
Be an express.
Go fast.
Make as much noise as you please.

*********************
 You can see how  great a mentor text this is for younger children in particular--it's pretend play in writing, with no plot or rhyme or syllable count--just pure metaphor. 

Thanks for stopping by to read this post-that-created-itself!