not OLW but ODT

not my actual dishes, but close

I just went back to see what my One Little Word for 2018 was and found that I didn't choose one.  I think I passed, knowing that I have had a hard time keeping my eye on it for a whole year and feeling slightly fraudulent and failed for taking the trouble to choose a OLW and then losing track of it almost immediately.  It's like embarking on a diet on January 2 and finding on January 3 that you have already blown it.  I have given up that kind of diet, that kind of New Year's resolution, because "resolve" and "will-power" are demons that distract me from One Difficult Truth.

It is this One Difficult Truth that, thanks to time, hurt, reality and Anne Lamott I will have no option but to attend to every single day forever, since it is the essence of every single day.  This is the paradox that you, Dear PF Friend, may have understood since your childhood spent in a bakery instead of a hardware store (you'll have to read Almost Everything: Notes on Hope to get that, although it's such a brilliant metaphor that you might grasp the meaning immediately).

This is the paradox of two truths about life that are bruisingly, simultaneously true at every moment of every day:  life is excruciating AND beautiful.  In each moment, at the same time as I am despairing deeply about the number of children separated and detained in cold metal "facilities," I may also be stirred by a freshet of joy, what Anne calls a "giddy appreciation" for a small, lovely satisfaction, such as how this year the number of holiday cookies was just right for the length of the holiday-cookie-eating season.

I know--duh.  But as Anne says, that all truth is paradox is "distressing for those of us who would prefer a more orderly and predictable system," a more black-and-white reality in which we could know we were Right, in which it's possible to Fix It.  I spent a lot of time and effort in my days as a young parent trying to solve the Dishwasher Problem, which was that no matter what system we devised for processing dirty dishes into clean ones neatly stacked in cupboards, THE KITCHEN WAS ALWAYS STREWN WITH DIRTY DISHES.  Really, I thought that there was some clever, simple way to fix this, if only I could discover or devise it, and it has taken me literally 20 years to understand that the only way to avoid dirty dishes is to stop eating.

And of course, to stop eating, to stop gathering for a hilarious, fraught family dinner as often as is practical, is a recipe for the end of humanity.

All this must be why I keep posting and reposting this old-fashioned poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.  She understood the paradox of the Dishwasher Problem even before dishwashers were invented, and she didn't even need a fancy metaphor to say it--only a few not especially clever rhymed lines.

 

 

I'm sure I still have loads of raging to do against the bitter and gorgeous paradox that is every moment of every day for those who have the wisdom and fortitude to see it.  It's making me exhausted and even depressed to be so wise.  But---

My injured foot healed in time for me to dance on New Year's Eve to "What I Like About You," and as we went around the circle after recess to practice naming our emotions, two 2nd graders said "Today I'm feeling happy because we are back at school," and my spouse took the trouble to find MacIntosh apples at the grocery store, and although these freshets of joy dry up fast when I listen to the news or notice the way my eyelids have drooped so that my boring blue-grey eyes barely sparkle anymore, at least I know this is normal.

I'm late to the roundup today, hosted by Sylvia at Poetry for Children, but I know I'll always feel a giddy appreciation by being a part of it.  Happy excruciating and exquisite 2019 to all.

the inside truth and the outside truth--and an invitation!

(SEE BELOW FOR THE INVTATION!)

Last month I taught a poetry workshop as part of the Religious Education program at my congregation (are you a UU and don't know it, poet?).  The theme for the month--for adults and children--was truth, and particularly the unavoidable experience that "the truth" is not static, not often engraved in stone, but is more often mutable, a matter of perspective and situation, even when objective facts can be established.

That's how we looked at nature objects in our poetry workshop.  We compared a poem that expressed the "outside truth" or objective qualities of an object with a poem that included feelings, experiences and imaginations about the object to express an "inside truth."  The children, ages 5-11, were then challenged to choose an object and write about it in either way, with heightened awareness of where their ideas were coming from.

I wrote about a rather mysterious object which turned out to be an avocado stone:

Outside Truth

brown seed, round seed
heavy, brown and round
light veins, dark veins
rolling in my hand

Inside Truth

you round, brown seed--
what's hiding inside you?
where is the green we think we have seen?
are you dead or alive?
do we need magicado
to grow an avocado?

~ Ms. Heidi


Here are just a few examples of poems written-- fast--on a Sunday morning.  The authors' names are aliases for now.

 is a egg

Is this egg good to eat.
I can't even crack it!
Is there a bird in there?
Is it a robin why are there no spots?

~ Madalie L.



Hard, solid bird egg
don't hide your yellow
the bird nest is a
place to hold you until
you leave soon.

~Nadia O.





 Miraculous Egg

eggs are all around us but did you ever stop and wonder where do eggs come from do they ride a bus?  do they form from themselves?  is it something that we can't see?  what happens to the animal inside when you crack it open and cook it with fire

~ Matt H.

What are you?
You are a sticks
You are rough
You have acorns on you
You are hiding something
You look like a heavy but small torch
Are you hiding fire?

~ Ken S.

This poem by Zoe P. has to be seen to be fully appreciated! 

The Family on the Tree

All connecting from one

Perfect--

Even with their bumps and cracks

Intertwined--

Staying in the same place,

Doing the same thing,

But some will crack off--

Following their own path,

Going to a place that they--

And maybe we--

Don't know--

But they will always be love,

They are all connecting from one--

Family.

~ Ari E.

There are many more, and they'll become a book eventually, for circulation in the congregation.  I hope it will eventually become a weekly poetry workshop, too, with so many poetic voices rising up!

The Round-up today is with Irene at Live Your Poem, where she's celebrating lots that is Fresh Delicious!

AND NOW FOR THE INVITATION...

Inspired by Tabatha's "Poem-Song Match-Up" project, I'm going to spend April posting Poetry-Music Match-Ups, and I'd like to invite you to submit your pairings.   The airwaves are wiiiide open!  You can submit your own poem with music you think goes with it, someone else's poem with a music match, poems written AS song lyrics, poems written FROM songs, songs written about poems, poems written about songs, favorite nursery rhymes (which often have tunes).  I'll aim to have a daily posting, but I'll need to queue them up during Spring Break, so if you have an idea you can send it to me right away!  heidi dot mordhorst dot poet @t g  mail dot etc.

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!