these are days: maysong

Greetings from the sodden mid-Atlantic, where on Mother's Day I looked at my weather app and saw something I truly thought was some kind of misprint, user error, data glitch.

Alas, this ten-day forecast has been pretty much accurate, and although my class got lucky with outdoor recess on Monday and Tuesday, today will be our 3rd straight day of indoor recess--in May!

May, of all months, the most voluptuous and enticing of all months,
the month when April showers are to have brought swathes of flowers, when a young person's fancy turns to thoughts of

I CANNOT SPEND A SINGLE  'NOTHER MINUTE INSIDE THIS CLASSROOM EVEN IF TODAY IS THE DAY THAT OUR CHRYSALISES CRACK OPEN & BECOME BUTTERFLIES.


I personally will not be sodden and down-trodden (even as I think with respect and compassion on those of  Muslim students and colleagues who are navigating this dreary gray week of AP's and exams WHILE FASTING) because I will be playing this poem on repeat.  I posted it in April of 2016 as part of my "Lyrics as Poetry" series, but it was a Monday and no one was paying attention...

so here's Natalie Merchant, with 10,000 Maniacs and line breaks by me.

These Are Days

These are the days

These are days 

you'll remember
Never before and never since

I promise

will the whole world be warm as this
And as you feel it

you'll know it's true 

that you are blessed and lucky
It's true 

that you are touched by something 

that will grow and bloom in you.

These are days 

you'll remember
When May is rushing over you 

with desire

to be part of the miracles you see

in every hour
You'll know it's true 

that you are blessed and lucky
It's true 

that you are touched by something 

that will grow and bloom in you

These are days

These are the days you might fill with laughter 

until you break
These days you might feel a shaft of light 

make its way across your face
And when you do 

you'll know how it was meant to be
See the signs and know their meaning
It's true

you'll know how it was meant to be
Hear the signs 

and know they're speaking to you,

to you. 

Play loud against the rain-dimmed sunrise and the rain-bent trees and the rain-rusted azaleas.

"These Are Days" by Natalie Merchant and Rob Buck

from the album Our Time in Eden, 1992

The round-up today is with Rebecca at Sloth Reads.  Slog on over and see what sun peeks from between the clouds....I'm just no good at raining.

forward...punCH!

www.sinfulcelluloid.com

Good morning on this snowy day in suburban DC!  We're marching along briskly in our first week of the Forward...MarCH Poetry CHallenge (read the introduction to this project here) and our word today is "punCH"--another one with several meanings most delicious to the poet.

I'm posting my one previously published poem for the week, but first I'll share one from Donna of Mainely Write.  You'll see why...

A Punch of Sun

Packing a wallop

Up in the sky 
Noontime it reaches
Cerulean;                                                  
High

--Donna Smith

Really tight, really strong, really great!  And how's this for a coincidence? 

Solar-Powered Sun Puppet

the dark side of me

glowers inside

drags at the tips of my toes

it feeds on clouds

on rainy skies

and only my shadow knows:

how heavy

the day is

how low the horizon

how sodden

and sad

I am

then sweet sun punches a hole in the clouds

sizzles and swims in my eyes

my shadow spills out through a hole in my sole

my darker side hung out to dry

howbrilliantthedayis! 

howhighthebluesky!

how sudden and mad I am!

I’m sunny-side up

I’m pumped full of light 

my silhouette dances on walls

now I can see clearly:

my dark doppelganger
freed by the sun's high call

        my demon cast out, my shadow of doubt
        is the shadow that proves that I am

HM 2009
Pumpkin Butterfly: Poems from the Other Side of Nature (Boyds Mills/Wordsong)

I don't know Donna well, but clearly we have sunthing going on.  Go visit Donna's blog--there's a LOT going on there!

Diane of Random Noodling has gone in a different direction with one of her senryu.  Love this marriage of words and image! (Too bad about Punch and Judy's marriage.)

 And Charles Waters is back, too--reminding me of all the "punch buggy, no punch-backs" that I've lived through in the car.

THE GOOD LUCK ALTERNATIVE

I bash my brother on his arm

I did this as a good luck charm

Until he punches my arm, whack!

 I then decide to pat his back.

(c) Charles Waters 2015 all rights reserved.

Mary Lee gets whacked and walloped by the wind:

Pre-Dawn Walk, Winter Edition

It's more than just a punch.
I'm hit by a powerful blow
as I turn north
into the bitter wind.

It slams me back,
rakes my face,
tears away breath,
tears up my eyes.

Seventy steps,
head bent,
then I turn west
and am sheltered.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2015 

Carol's is short and light:

The storm raged on-
punCHed the sky,
letting more snow
flit and fly.

2015 CVarsalona

Joy's punch is eggnog...

Please
Use the
New
Cups to
Have eggnog.
 
And Matt's will quenCH your thirst for a laugh:

Some years ago
I met Don Ho.
He took me out to lunch.
His date was hot;
that's why I got
a nice Hawaiian punch.

-© 2015, Matt Forrest Esenwine

Join us tomorrow for "fetCH"!

scary valentine's day! and sunshine and march madness

It is a little scary here in the mid-Atlantic, with about 13" of snow arriving in two rounds yesterday.  School was cancelled for Thursday by 3 pm on Wednesday, and now school is closed Friday as well as Presidents' Day Monday--a 5-day weekend.  This makes a total of 7 snow days so far this year, but fortunately/ unfortunately (depending on who you are and what you lose) the State of Maryland has declared a State of Emergency, so those missed school days will not have to be made up in June.  Perhaps climate change is another reason why American school systems are going to need to shift to a year-round schedule with rearranged breaks...

Anyway, school Valentine parties are all rescheduled for next Friday and will have to be a little blip on the landscape instead of the big deal it once was in my 4's nursery school class.  One inspired year, following the lead of the children, we spent February pursuing MONSTERS.  In those days I played guitar, we sang every day, and I made up stuff here and there as needed...including the following celebration of love so powerful it's scary!  I don't have chords and can only dimly remember what tune we sang, so if anyone out there would like to compose a new tune, these lyrics are definitely for sale. ; )  We made crazy monsters with heart-shaped bodies and accordion-folded limbs to go with the song.

The Love Monsters

Look out!  Watch out!
The Love Monsters are coming!

Look out!  Watch out!
The Love Monsters are coming!

They come in every shape and size
They live under your bed
Their favorite day is Valentine's
They're pink and white and red

Their long arms stretch to hug you tight
Their sweet lips want to kiss you
Their long legs chase you day and night
When you're gone they miss you

Look out!  Watch out!
The Love Monsters are coming!
Look out!  Watch out!
The Love Monsters are coming!

HM 2014
all rights reserved

In other news, Ruth from There is no such thing as a Godforsaken town has nominated me for a Sunshine Award!  The award is actually a homework assignment of the best kind; here's how it works.

1. Share 11 random facts about yourself
2. Answer the 11 questions the nominating blogger creates for you
3. List 11 bloggers
4. Post 11 questions
5. Acknowledge the nominating bloggers
6. for the bloggers you nominate to answer and let all the bloggers know they've been nominated.  (You cannot nominate the blogger who nominated you.)

My 11 questions from Ruth are

1.  What's your favorite song right now?

2.  What made you decide to start blogging?

3.  What's your favorite post you've ever written?  (Link, please!)

4.  What's a book you've given (or loaned) to multiple people because you love it so much?

5.  What Hogwarts house would you be in?

6.  What's your comfort food of choice?

7.  What book character would you like to have lunch with?

8.  What's your favorite podcast?

9.  What's a movie you've watched many times?

10.  What are your favorite clothes to wear?

11.  What's a book on your wish list?
I shall be working on this over the next week and I have a feeling I might have trouble finding 11 bloggers who have not yet participated...so if you're feeling sunshiny, let me know and I'll tag you.

And, last but not least, I find myself getting excited about the challenge of participating once again in the March Madness Poetry Tournament hosted by Ed DeCaria at Think Kid Think.  Ed is not only a technogeek who uses tools and statistics to analyze poetry (his "Poemetrics" approach) but has been tireless in his efforts to make the tournament a real reflection of poetic skill.  In the past there was some feeling that poets could win a round based on popularity or number of friends voting rather than on the success of their actual poem. This year Ed has introduced new opportunities for participation by the public as well as new guidelines for winning a match-up:

Unlike previous years where the public vote alone determined the winner, in 2014, #MMPoetry authletes must win two of three of the following separate votes to win their matchup:

1. Public vote
2. Classroom vote – this is where you come in!
3. Authlete vote

Do you see that, teachers?  Your class can become a pre-approved official voting classroom, helping to ensure that the winning children's poems in the Tournament have actually been read by children!  (And voting classrooms are entered to win a really nice prize: a collection of FIFTY (50) children's poetry collections.)

Do you see that, poets?  Your poems will be voted on by kids and your poetry peers, not just the general public!  I encourage you to join me, Jane Yolen, Allan Wolf, Tiffany Strelitz Haber, Samuel Kent and prodigy Gloson Teh (and many more) by signing up to "compete"!  The application is here:
http://www.thinkkidthink.com/mmpoetry-2014/authlete-application/

pfams weather

We had some exciting weather yesterday outside our kindergarten classroom: at 1:35 we went out for our five-minute scream-and-chase-fest and noticed, despite the sunny sky and sweltering heat (and the screaming), some pretty powerful rumbles of thunder.  By 1:45 it had grown darkly cloudy and the rain was peltering down.  Lightning had joined the thunder, which was then joined by gleeful and fearful shrieking of 5-year-olds. 

We stopped looking at yesterday's-best Writing Workshop work and spun around on our blue sitting lines to face the weather graph, where we recorded.....our first rainy day in September!  And wind!  And still red-hot out there! 

[As I struggled to maintain control amid the storm and get everybody settled into Think-Draw-Write-Read mode, my parent volunteer, in for the first time, spoke the words we teachers long to hear, because so many people believe otherwise:  "This is a very difficult job--I don't know how you do it."]

All of this weather sent me looking for a sudden storm poem.  I picked up The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School and found three mighty enjoyable Week 9: Weather poems.  7th grade has Leslea Newman's "After the Blizzard, Outside My Window," and 8th grade has the rather exquisite "Sunbeam Confesses Its Love of Geometry" by Mary Lee Hahn, but it was in 6th grade that I found a poem closest to my stormy afternoon.  In case it's not obvious--I identified with the general. 


Racing the Clouds | Jacqueline Jules

The sky
is the color of a battleship.
Raindrops
wait with heavy breath,
like tense soldier listening
for a general's barked command.
The battle
will begin tonight.
But now
the sidewalk summons,
and a warm breeze kisses my cheek.
I'll take a chance
and race the clouds.
Hear my heart pound
in rhythm with my feet.

©The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School 2013

The round-up today is with Jen at Teach Mentor Texts, a new place for me.  And really, don't miss my Tuesday post below, a poem I found in my Comments inbox.  It's just too good (better than my blog lately).  And oh my gosh!  I almost neglected to mention that I am now a member of the Poets' Garage!  This is a wonderful development for me and I'm grateful for the opportunity, plus I like the cool badge.  Thanks to all the poets and clever administerial types who make the Garage run like greased lightnin'.

hybrid

hybrid storm
hot then cold
fast wind churning slow
terrible  wild
passing to mild

leaves a mess
of mixed debris
schadenfreude isn't right
something luckier
something sadder

and it matters


Heidi Mordhorst 2012
DRAFT

And not only that--the clock fall back this weekend.  Links of interest:
Richard Cohen
schadenfreude

Poetry Friday roundup is with Donna at Mainely Write.  GOTV!

OIK Tuesday: sky mice

This week I'm sharing a poem that the Might Minnows discovered, hiding in plain sight, in the Leo Lionni book Frederick. We read it in November, when the change of seasons was unmistakable here in the mid-Atlantic and it was important to think about storing up food--and sunrays, colors and words!--in preparation for the long winter.  This book also served as our first introduction into what it is to be a poet.

I won't post the well-known "Five Little Pumpkins" rhyme that came before this one--it can be found enough places.  But I will point out that our poetry anthology, when completed, deliberately included both simpler poems like "Five Little Pumpkins" and more complex ones like the one below that I titled "Frederick's Sky Mice."  Sometimes we all learned the poem by heart, and sometimes it was enough to hear it over and over again and complete each line as the teacher read it.  When we reviewed our anthologies at the end of the year, some children were surprised to find that they could read this one independently now!

Frederick’s Sky Mice
by Leo Lionni

Who scatters snowflakes? Who melts the ice?
Who spoils the weather? Who makes it nice?
Who grows the four-leaf clovers in June?
Who dims the daylight? Who lights the moon?

Four little field mice who live in the sky.
Four little field mice … like you and I.

One is the Springmouse who turns on the showers.
Then comes the Summermouse who paints in the flowers.
The Fallmouse is next with walnuts and wheat.
And Wintermouse is last … with little cold feet.

Aren’t we lucky the seasons are four?
Think of a year with one less … or one more!

Teachers, go here and here for great resources on Lionni's books, and enjoy the photos of mice visiting the Mighty Minnows!

"the gift of time"

Oh, glory! Thanks to a steady sifting of snow yesterday, the DC metro area is now just incapacitated enough to open schools on a 2-hour delay. This is in addition to last evening's gift of a glass of wine and a natter with neighbors, possible because of cancelled kidtivities. My contempt for a local culture that keeps children IN for recess because it's snowing is temporarily outweighed--selfishly--by gratitude for the gift of unexpected free time.








For the gingerbread fans, here are the promised photos: my mother's 1940 cookie cutter, the D's at work with the dough, and the finished adorables on the tree. (I could wish the photos were more skilled--but that's not my area, according to the division of labor in this family).

Poetry is my area, however. This week I've been at work on two projects: judging the work of some high school poets for the PTA's "Reflections" arts program, and working with the wonderfully versatile Laura Shovan on a grown-up poetry anthology that will be published by the Maryland Writers' Association. I'll have three poems in the collection and am also writing an introduction to one section, which has been a refreshing challenge.


At our house we're preparing for Yuletide and our "high holiday" Solstice Dinner. It's a tradition for me to give the guests (close family and neighbors) gifts of light on the shortest day of the year. There have been candles and candleholders and matches and flashlights of all descriptions over the years, but this year I'm going intangible, in this direction:






“If I stand”
from Light by Inger Christensen


If I stand
alone in the snow
it is clear
that I am a clock


how else would eternity
find its way around


Step into the pool of winter light that is Poetry Friday, hosted today by Amy at The Poem Farm!