forward...preaCH and unhitCH!

Welcome to Week Two of the Forward...MarCH CHallenge, in which I and other intrepid souls will compose five more poems using five more punCHy, active words ending in -CH.

Today's word is "preaCH," and here I go:

The Good News

Preacher stands in the pulpit,

reads the sermon for the day,

each word settling heavy and deep;

all our little gaps are filled.  We

carry those heavy words

home; they don’t carry us.

HM 2015

all rights reserved

My, that came out a little dark (don't take it personally, Dad).  I had some other ideas for today's word also--the birds singing over the melting snow this warmer weekend are preaching spring for sure--but lesson plans beckon.

Margaret Simon joins us for the first time this month with a lovely tanka, and wants us to know that a coulee is a ditCH in South Louisiana (not be confused with a coulis, which you pour over your dessert.  They both flow).  This is in response to the Ditty of the Month Club challenge to write a tanka with Margarita Engle.  Margaret will be posting this poem on her blog along with the description of how it came to be, inspired by a photo challenge from Kim Douillard.

Sun overlooks
blessing a lonely smoke stack.
Coulee wildflowers
preach yellow sonnets
while moon graces morning clouds.

--Margaret Simon

Donna Smith returns with TWO bonus poems: first a double acrostic reverso shape poem using the word churCH instead of preaCH.  Fancy stuff that works for me!

And from Saturday (flexing her poetry muscles in preparation for her rounds in the March Madness Poetry Tournament), Donna gives us a follow-up to her "Twitch of Sick" from last week:

Screw Medicine

I need a little medicine;
the stuff you said to use  -
not the grape-y liquid, but
the ones that look like screws.
I'm feeling somewhat better from
my knees down to my toes;
but my hunch is that I need to take
just one or two of those.
Screw medicine is really good
for when you're sick in bed,
It makes me feel much better
from my knees up to my head!

©Donna JT Smith, all rights reserved

And I owe an apology to both Diane and Donna for today:  their poems use the word "un/hitCH" because my original list of words included "unhitCH" before I revised it slightly.  They get full credit, of course, due to Operator Error.  I love the practical tone of this "take-the-bull-by-the-horns" poem by Diane.

Hitch Your Wagon

How's that expression go?
"Hitch your wagon to a star"?
Just how far is the closest star?
More years than you'll have.
Of course, if your goal
is procrastination, then
you'll shine, shine, shine!

Take my advice--step in front
of that wagon, insert your head
and buckle up the collar, attach
the traces. You can click
to yourself if you'd like--no
further motivation is necessary.
Lay back your ears and go.

         --Diane Mayr

And now for a ride in Donna's wagon...

Unhitch

Hitch up the wagon we're ready to roll...
hitch up your britches or you'll catch a cold...
hitch this to that so it'll be stronger...
hitch that to this to make it be longer...

Unhitch the wagon, put horses away...
unhitch your britches, it's been a long day...
unhitch the ropes and unhitch the ties...
unhitch the the sun, the moon's on the rise!

Joy also had  "unhitch" on her calendar--again, my apologies!  Look at this nice use of the idea:

broom sedge seeds unhitch
from their whiskery branches
floating in the breeze

Mary Lee DID have "preaCH" on her list, and takes me to task to leaving "teaCH" off it.  I guess I thought that would just be so obvious...but look how she got it in anyway!

A Note to My Students

Stop me if I start to preach.
That’s not my job;
I’m here to teach.

And if I talk and talk and talk,
remind me - gently –
I should stop

and listen more
and let you speak,
discover, wonder,

think,
think,
think.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2015

And Carol's is almost a twin to Mary Lee's (and both make me notice that I DO sometimes want to preach in my classroom!).

When I prepare to teach

I don't want to preach.

Sermons are meant for church,

and deliberate soul search.

When I stand and teach

I don't want to preach.

I want passion to spill-

learners engaged in the thrill.

Learning is messy

and that is so.

Keep the students 

engaged, on the go.

Jone joins in with Selma on her mind, like so many of us...

PREACH

In Selma
thousands marched
in hopes of freedom
and equality.
Thousand march
still and
preach themes
of freedom and equality
only the choir
seems to hear.

© 2015 Jone Rush MacCulloch all rights reserved

 Play along by posting your "preaCH" (or "hitCH") poem in the comments or by emailing me!

putting faith in poetry

One of the reasons I like my UU congregation is that hardly a week goes by without a poem as part of the Sunday morning service--a poem read, typically, by a skilled orator.  I grew up in Lutheran churches also led by a skilled orator--my dad--but beyond the poetry of the scriptures, I can't recall a time when a contemporary poem was shared in church.

During all those years growing up Lutheran, a plain-looking magazine printed on newsprint was a fixture in our house:  The Christian Century.  What I didn't know was that my dad's favorite professional publication published a lot of contemporary poetry (and I think, in those days, that he didn't give a lot of attention to the poems either).  Now I am subscribed to this now glossier, very interesting, well-written magazine, thanks to Dad, and the poetry alone is well worth the time.

Here's a little allium-scented sample from the CC website.

Peeling the onion | Luci Shaw

There’s not much I don’t know about you—
yellow, red, sweet—grubbed up roots and all.
Essential for a vigorous cuisine, alerting
the sense—the crackle of your paper brown outer
skin, your translucent inner sheaths like
vegetable undergarments, your pungent heat
rising from sharp steel and cutting board
to my blurred eyes, your precise circles against
the wood, before the sizzle in the buttered pan.

Reluctant to relinquish our intimacy
your sharp essence clings to my fingers, like
a reputation. Hours later, in the dark, you season
the air around my hands, I’ll stud you with
stars of cloves to bury in the belly of the bird
before roasting. Or nestle your pearls
with a stalk of mint among the green peas....

*****************
Read the rest here, trying not to get distracted by Shrek, and peel back the layers of Poetry Friday by visiting Tara at A Teaching Life.

 

overheard in Sunday School

This year at my Unitarian Universalist congregation we're using a new (to us) approach to religious education known as the WRM or Workshop Rotation Model.  Rather than sending same-grade groups of kids to the same class with the same teachers each Sunday, the kids are divided into several multiage groups and each month a handful of different types of lessons are taught around a theme.  The groups rotate through each lesson over the course of the month, with new volunteers teaching each month. 

In February, when our theme was Truth, I offered a poetry workshop.  I worked with three groups of  3rd-5th graders, and our RE Director worked with our one group of K-2nd graders.  As I had hoped, UU kids were especially receptive to poetry and dove in, producing some really first-rate work in our one hour together.  (Someday I'll write a post about what I mean about UU's and poetry.)

I used a poem from my collection Squeeze about a special rock to introduce the idea of an "outside truth" (the sensory, scientific facts about a thing) and an "inside truth"--the personal experiences and imaginations about a thing that are equally meaningful and true.  We provided some interesting nature objects as inspiration, and challenged the children to be aware, as they wrote, about whether they were expressing the outside truth or the inside truth about their subject.  Even the adult guides for each group wrote, and one of them, Danie Smallwood, a photographer, took really striking photos of the objects for an illustrated anthology of the poems, which we'll copy for the congregation to enjoy.

Here are the first two poems in the series, each of them first and only drafts.  Enjoy!













Starfish 

With five points sticking out

Pops of white bursting out

Light brown spots

Hard to see

Like the bottom with a honey-colored line that seems to be

Pouring out

Woven under

With small holes

That to me look as if they are going to break open

Unlike the ocean

Harsh, never stopping, never having an opening

 

~Katie, 5th grade

 Light Wing

Light wing, bumpy wing,

Light wing, colorful, and bumpy.

Yellow dots, black dots,

Light wing in my hands.  

 

~ Zachary, 2nd grade

 

The roundup for this week's Poetry Friday is over at GottaBook with Greg. Go gear up for National Poetry Month!

 

animal spirituality

is at The Miss Rumphius Effect today.


A sleepover on Christmas Eve at the grandparents' in Baltimore is part of our holiday tradition, elegantly (if I say so myself) incorporated into our family's 12 Days of Yuletide. I got a lovely gift this year from my mother--two books of poetry, The Trouble with Poetry by Billy Collins and Voices by Lucille Clifton. Lucille (I stand in awe and yet presume a first-name basis) is one of my favorite Revered Adult Poets because of the brevity and simplicity of her writing, which enables her also to speak to the youngest children. If you don't know them, go find the Everett Anderson books soon. The variety in Voices is stunning, and I particularly liked this one and shared it with D the elder:

horse prayer

why was i born to balance
this two-leg
on my back to carry
across my snout
his stocking of oat and apple
why i pray to You
Father Of What Runs And Swims
in the name of the fenceless
field when he declares himself
master
does he not understand my
neigh

It reminded me of the following, which I once used as the basis for a writing project with Year 2 children in London:

The Prayer of the Little Ducks

Dear God,
give us a flood of water.
Let it rain tomorrow and always.
Give us plenty of the little slugs
and other luscious things to eat.
Protect all folk who quack
and everyone who knows how to swim.
Amen.

~Carmen Bernos de Gasztold
translated from the original French by Rumer Godden
from the collection Prayers from the Ark

Somehow I find the gods of animals more accessible than the gods of humans. : )

heigh-ho heigh-ho it's off to work we go

I'm not at my best this morning, but both of us were smokin' last night at the Out for Equality Inaugural Ball. Everybody was already feeling fabulous, even after some frustrating "but I have tickets!" experiences, and music by Dave Koz, Katie Curtis, Thelma Houston and that ever-bubbling fount of exuberance Cyndi Lauper boosted us all way up over the top. (Rufus Wainwright performed too, remarking insightfully that he's not really a party dude, being "rather morose, but I look good, so it all works out.") The evening ended with Melissa Etheridge growling earnestly away; a friend and I agreed that we're fans of her existence if not her music.

One of the unscheduled visitors (Sir Ian McKellen said a word and Jamie Lee Curtis and Carrie Fisher were both sighted) was Bishop Gene Robinson, who spoke the opening words at Monday's We Are One concert (nearly attended by Fiona but not quite) but whose contribution was inexplicably not broadcast. Here is his prayer; to get the full effect compare it side by side with Rev. Rick Warren's. Whether you're Christian or not, religious or not, Robinson's prayer shows a future of faith that I for one can live alongside.

A Prayer for the Nation and Our Next President, Barack Obama
By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire
Opening Inaugural Event, Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC January 18, 2009

Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God's blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will...
Bless us with tears - for a world in which over a billion people existon less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.
Bless us with anger - at discrimination, at home and abroad, againstrefugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
Bless us with discomfort - at the easy, simplistic "answers" we've preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.
Bless us with patience - and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be "fixed" anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.
Bless us with humility - open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world. Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance - replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding thatin our diversity, we are stronger.
Bless us with compassion and generosity - remembering that every religion's God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable inthe human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States. Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln's reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy's ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King's dream of a nation for ALL the people.
Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.
Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.
Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.
Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.
Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters' childhoods.
And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we're asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand - that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.
AMEN.