Dear Sunday Swaggers,
I'm sorry. Last week I very consciously made a decision to pass on Poetry Friday in order to focus on my work for the NCTE Poetry Awards Committee meeting on Friday evening. My beleaguered brain was unable to recall that on THIS particular Friday, I was committed to our monthly group challenge--this time from Linda Mitchell, to write an aubade (here's a good one by Philip Larkin). So you came here on Friday morning and found only...
Naubade.
No song or poem
greets this dawn.
Nobody bids a
fond adieu to a love.
There is no parting here
this morn, for neither
was there joining...
except the joining
of an early riser
and her books. She rose
to read, to join with eyes
of love wide open, wise,
to read what the world
would put before a child.
She read to see that words
played music like the dawn,
like rays of light and veils
of cloud removed, illuminating
extraordinary news.
She read to see that promises
were kept, that what the
poem claimed would be
delivered, along with
extra unexpected joy.
She read to keep familiar
voices honest. She read to
thresh fresh voices from
the throng. She read and
wrote her morning love
a song, a song to guide
the ones who choose
the books, who spread
the poems out before
the child.
draft ©Heidi Mordhorst 2020
Please accept my apology, Swaggers. Our committee is excited to be participating at the NCTE Annual (Virtual) Convention, reviewing last year's picks, introducing this year's choices, and announcing the biennial
NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children!
And in case you missed my fellow aubadeers' work last week, here are links:
