Category: Poetry

I love poetry. Sometimes I even write it.

Bootstraps

On By Alicia McCauleyIn Poetry, Teacher Tales2 Comments

This morning I’m thinking about some of my former students.  Teachers aren’t supposed to play favorites, but there are some children who will always stick with me, always reside in my heart.  And in the quiet morning of the first day of Christmas vacation, one darling little girl has tiptoed to the front of my mind.

I taught her for most of her first grade year, but she left before the year ended, and like so many students who have come and gone too quickly, I’m left wondering about her.

Wondering if she still writes.  Wondering if she’s going to have any presents to open this Christmas.  Wondering if her bootstraps are still holding strong.

I penned this poem about her over here last July:

Bootstraps

Her hair is unbrushed, a tangle of dark curls crowning her head.

She smooths her dirty dress, eyes locked on the floor.

As she edges to the front of the room, I can’t help but smile at her shoes on the wrong feet.

It has taken work, hard work, for this waif to get herself to school today.

Sitting like royalty in the big wooden chair, she reads.

Time stops, holds its hands still.

Only her voice continues, small lips giving life to big words.

Her story is a magic wand, casting a spell on the other children.

Their mouths hang agape and we dare not breathe.

This misfit little girl has yanked at her own bootstraps.

She utters the last words.

There is silence and then the accolades fall at her feet.

Her pen is mighty, mighty indeed.

And so is she.

Things I Learned Last Week

On By Alicia McCauleyIn Poetry2 Comments

I’m reading “Living the Questions: A Guide for Teacher-Researchers”.  (Don’t worry, it’s way better than it sounds.)  And no, this isn’t another post about teaching.  Anyway, I’m responsible for reading chapter 4 in the next couple of weeks.  I had every intention of just skipping ahead to chapter 4, but in the same way that I can’t jump into a novel at chapter 4, I can’t just skip over the first 3 chapters.  The authors put them there for a reason, right?  So this afternoon I was reading the first chapter and stumbled across this odd little poem:

Things I Learned Last Week

by William Stafford

Ants, when they meet each other, usually pass on the right.

Sometimes you can open a sticky door with your elbow.

A man in Boston has dedicated himself to telling about injustice.  For three thousand dollars he will come to your town to tell you about it.

Schopenhauer was a pessimist, but he played the flute.

Yeats, Pound, and Eliot saw art as growing from other art. They studied that.

If I ever die, I’d like it to be in the evening. That way, I’ll have all the dark to go with me, and no one will see how I begin to hobble along.

In The Pentagon one person’s job is to take pins out of towns, hills, and fields, and then save the pins for later.

Naturally, I had to stop reading chapter 1 and create one of my own because if I didn’t, I’d never get the image of ants passing on the right out of my head.  And then there would simply be no chance of ever making it to chapter 4 because I’d be thinking about those darn ants all day.

Things I Learned Last Week

by: Alicia McCauley

Birds automatically empty their waste before taking off in flight, so it’s nothing personal when I leave my front door and the birds living in my Morning Glory let fly as I run in terror.

Sticks and stones may break bones, but words can pierce the heart.  And there’s no cast to fix that kind of injury.

The kid who one day only produces a title and two words of the first sentence is the same kid who will crank out two pages the next day and run up to me beaming, “Mrs. McCauley, you just gotta read this!”

The old movie theater now only costs $1 on Tuesdays.  Tuesday nights just got a whole lot more interesting.

Splitting and doubling down are not the same thing.  At all.

For the bargain price of $900, 24 friends and I will be spending the night at the planetarium and environmental camp.  This is the same camp I attended in 5th grade where I was mistaken for a boy.  Let the PTSD flashbacks commence.

Before you go, I’m curious to know what you learned last week.  So go ahead and drop some nuggets of newfound knowledge in the comments section.  Now I have to go make a sugar trail in my kitchen and observe the traveling etiquette of ants.

I Am From

On By Alicia McCauleyIn Poetry2 Comments

I was introduced to the work of George Ella Lyon at the NCWP Summer Institute.  That night I tucked myself into my dorm room, plugged my earbuds into my laptop and was mesmerized by the richness of  George Ella Lyon’s voice.  I listened to her poem Where I’m From over and over again that night.  And then, like all writers do, I tried to emulate her.  I plumbed my memories and tapped away at the keys, deleting and typing, deleting and typing until the lines left on the screen felt right in my mouth. These are those lines.

I Am From

I am from hopscotch chalked on sidewalks, from Schwinn and Barbies.

I am from the top of Sleepy Hollow Loop, picking Poet’s Shooting Star for my mother.

I am from dandelion seeds caught in my curls, a faded image captured in the pages of my red photo album.

I am from jumping barefoot over salty waves, gripping my grandfather’s steady hand.

I am from the Wheeler nose and Betty Jean’s dimpled cheeks.

I am from the never-ending goodbye and Christmas stockings, stitched with care.

I am from the empty tomb and undeserved, infinite grace.

I am from Redding, scorched into my skin on sweltering summer days.

I am from Saturday morning sweetmilks and strings of golden taffy.

I am from pink bikes and purple lips stained with blackberries by the river

I am from poetry and my mother’s lullabies.

I am from beeping EKG’s keeping time with my heart, keeping time with my beautiful life.

Skywriters

On By Alicia McCauleyIn PoetryLeave a comment

The powder blue heavens are streaked with white brushstrokes.

The skywriters are marking the sky from the cockpits of their enormous pens.

They are curt editors, slashing the horizon in front of me,

Crossing out erroneous clouds.

————————————————————————————————-

I press my forehead to the window, craning my neck to see how their story ends.

The mountains are tucked under green blankets and sun shushes them to sleep.

The skywriters turn back home for the night,

Their crisp lines relax, wisps loosening into the wind.

————————————————————————————————-

The motion of the car lulls me, rocking me into a dream.

It is a memory returning to me in the darkening sky.

I am jumping waves, my legs kicking up sand and saltwater

My chubby hands holding fast to the fingers of my grandfather.

————————————————————————————————-

I wake too quickly, my fisted hands gripping nothing tight.

I lift my face up, peering through the windshield.

The moon lifts its milky face to meet mine.

It pulls the tides, erasing today’s page for tomorrow’s story.

Big Voice

On By Alicia McCauleyIn PoetryLeave a comment

Along the way
Saying yes to some.
Saying no to others.
Effort on what is essential.

Honor the sense of adventure, responsiveness,
Improvisation, opportunism, experimentation, alertness,
The possible contagion of topics.

Rich, tacit understanding
Intuitions about form, language, dialogue, voice.
The dazzling particularity of individual performance.

Toward invention, toward generation,
The infinity of connections and associations,
Of excess, of fullness, of having a lot to say.

Tip the balance.
Develop hope for the future.
Be daring.
Have a big voice.