and boy could I use a drink

Greetings, Poets and Poetry Lovers!  Before we get to the main course, I'd like you to know that my April NPM project, inspired by the excellent experience of participating in Laura Shovan's February Poetry Projects on Facebook, is to host a group called PARADISE, PAVED: 

"We are poets who need a place to park the results of our daily writing practice. We're looking for accountability, community and feedback. It may not be grand or glamorous, but it's practical--and private. There are just two rules, beyond the basic rules of civil discourse and internet decency:
1) Any day that you post a poem, please offer comments to at least three other poets.
2) If you used any kind of prompt, share!

It's private so that our efforts can't be considered previously published on the web (which prevents submission to many journals and anthologies)--but it's open to whomever.  We'd love to have you if you need a place to post! Just drop me a note and I'll invite you.

And now:  It was a Big Week: back to In-Person PreK on Thursday after a year of dreading what it might be like to teach 4- and 5-year-olds masked and from 6 feet away.  Technically, the 6-foot distance requirement changed in the last two weeks to "more like 3 feet is good enough," which means that our 9 students became 10 in a large early childhood room.

And guess what?  After I had both a panic attack and a temper tantrum (mainly about having to add a daily commute back in to my day), it went...not so terrible! Except for specials, there's nothing we need to use Chromebooks for, and while our pile of Pretend Play furniture and all the big wooden blocks are languishing in a corner covered by a Christmas flamingoes bedsheet (my para is a consummate thrift-store shopper), these little ones, most of whom had never been to any kind of school, took their individual trapezoid tables and individual Choice Boxes full of manipulatives in stride.

It'll be a while before we get the hang of dashing out of school at noon to get home and teach the Virtual PM group at 1:00--and it is two preparations, after all--but it wasn't awful and sad and difficult.  Check in with me after the honeymoon...

Meanwhile, by 5pm on Thursday I was well and truly wiped.  It was gorgeous out, so I got my turquoise lounge chair from the shed and sat reading BRAIDING SWEETGRASS in the evening sun and drinking a celebratory beer...which reacted unexpectedly strongly with my dehydration and my anti-anxiety pill, so that I when I stood up to make dinner I was well and truly DRUNK.  But not too drunk to cook, and not too drunk to notice that around the corner of the house these beauties had bloomed.

 

So here's my equation poem, inspired by Laura Purdie Salas's SNOWMAN - COLD = PUDDLE. 

 

evening sun + tulip cups + breeze = 

cocktails on a green beach

 

Our host today is dear Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference.  May bebidas en una playa verde ease our swirling bilingual minds!