Tag: poetry

Poetry From Little Lips

On By Alicia McCauleyIn Poetry, Teacher TalesLeave a comment

Children have such a way with words, pairing combinations that just pulse off the page.  Their little lips seem to spill poetry.  I’m lucky enough to be a fly on the wall when they mish mash those beautiful combinations.

Poet Naomi Shihab Nye collected some of the things her son said and reads his words here in her poem “One Boy Told Me”.

You are, no doubt, scrambling for a piece of paper this very second to write down the wonders that have slipped through the lips of your son, daughter, niece, nephew, granddaughter, grandson, the kid next door, or even that funny kid in front of you in line at the post office.  Do it, grab a pencil and write it down.  Quick, before your grown-up brain forgets and instead fills up with mundane things like the grocery list.  And then share your lines or a link to them in the comments section please.  It’s National Poetry Month and we all deserve a little more poetry in our lives.

Thinking Spring

On By Alicia McCauleyIn Poetry1 Comment

April is National Poetry Month and although the first day of Spring was nearly a month ago, it feels like Spring is just now arriving.  So here’s a little poem to celebrate the fact that maybe, just maybe winter is finally giving way.

Thinking Spring

The sign outside my front door reads ‘Think Spring’.

In the breath of summer, that leaves me cracked and dry,

And in the fall, when bouquets of colors fall at my feet,

But especially when the cold song of winter whistles through the crack of my front door,

I’m thinking about all that is secreted away, tucked in and waiting to bloom,

All that is just waiting for wind’s warm whisper that Spring has arrived.

 

The Box

On By Alicia McCauleyIn Poetry, Teacher Tales4 Comments

Last week one of my little ones brought in a box and unpacked his most precious things to share with the class.

The Box

He sits in front of the class,

Feet dangling, kicking the legs of the chair.

He is never still,

Even in his sitting, there is motion.

____________________________________________________

Today is his day to bring special things.

He holds a hat box covered in faded denim,

The edges smudged with soot.

This is all I have.  It’s one of my only things that didn’t burn.

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Ever so carefully he lifts the round lid

He pulls out a blue onesie,

Laying it in his open palm, rocking it back and forth in his arms

This is how my dad used to hold me.

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He dangles his hospital bracelet,

Wraps it around two of his fingers,

Can you believe I was ever that little?

Yes, sweet boy, I believe you were once that small.

____________________________________________________

He lifts out a stack of greeting cards,

Searching through them until he finds the one his grandmother wrote,

Her words welcoming him to the world.

Will you help me read this one?  It’s my favorite.

____________________________________________________

He scoots over on the chair and I sit beside him.

As the first words leave my lips, he ducks his head under my arm and reads.

He knows every word by heart,

Each period a tap of his toes.

____________________________________________________

He stacks the cards into the box, folds the onesie on top

And tucks the bracelet in the sleeve before replacing the lid.

The box sits atop his desk the rest of the day.

I catch him fingering the fabric, smiling as he lifts the lid every now and again.

____________________________________________________

I can’t help but think of how we come to the earth with nothing,

And leave with nothing,

Yet we leave with so much more.

In the unpacking of his box, this little boy filled mine.

Blackberries

On By Alicia McCauleyIn Poetry15 Comments

I am completely over the moon for Poetry Everywhere.  Oh, I’ve mentioned that before?  Like 100 times?  Well, make this 101 because Seamus Heaney’s poem “Blackberry Picking” has swept me back to my childhood, picking blackberries with my family.  His beautiful imagery inspired me to write my own poem about blackberries.  It’s for my big brother, Jeff, perhaps the only person in the world who loves blackberries more than I do.

Blackberries

Our family car is the color of overcooked green beans.

We pile in the backseat and drive to the river,

Always the river,

To relieve the heat that leaves us cracked and withered.

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We don’t care about sweat beading on our brows or our legs sticking to the seats.

My brother and I hope for blackberries,

Buckets of blackberries,

Ripe with the sweet taste of summer.

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We grab our empty buckets, peel ourselves out of the car and race to the brambles.

We reach into the bushes, cajoling the stems to surrender their jewels,

The jewels of summer,

Treasures between our teeth, tender on our tongues.

——————————————————————————————————–

The tangles of thorns scratch at our browned arms and legs,

We bleed, my brother and I.

The blackberries bleed with us,

In our hands, in our buckets, blackberry wine trickling down our lips.

——————————————————————————————————–

Our stained mouths bellow purple shouts of jubilee,

Our voices carry beyond the thicket, beyond the river

Our giggles echo on the water,

The mighty river, always laughing with us.

——————————————————————————————————–

Our buckets are full, our bellies round jars of jam

Our cheeks blush with kisses from the sun,

The sun that rises,

To ripen blackberries for her children.

——————————————————————————————————–

We pile into the car, our skin salty and sticky sweet.

The car is heavy with summer heat, cooking us until we wilt.

My brother and I exchange tired smiles, cradling our buckets,

Buckets brimming with blackberries, buckets brimming with joy.

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And because you deserve a little more poetry in your life, here’s a video of Seamus Heaney’s “Picking Blackberries”.  See how I put mine first so you won’t compare the two?  Clever, no?  Anyway, here is the poem that inspired me.  There just aren’t many things better than poetry, blackberries, and the music of James Morrison.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGxkRc0rd0o

Day In A Sentence: The Beauty We Love

On By Alicia McCauleyIn Poetry15 Comments

I’m thrilled to be hosting Day In A Sentence this week.

Oh, you’re new here?  Hi, I’m Alicia.  Don’t worry, I’ll sit by you at the lunch table.

You don’t know what Day In A Sentence is?  It’s okay.  I’ll explain, but first you’ve just got to watch this real quick.

You want to watch it a second time?  I did, too.  Go ahead.  I’ll wait.

I’ve watched Coleman Barks read this poem several times and I can’t stop chewing on the line “Let the beauty we love be what we do.” I could chew on that line for a long time and never be hungry again.  It’s so nourishing, this idea of the beauty we love being what we do.

So here’s the task for this week’s Day In A Sentence: write a sentence about the beauty you love and how you manifested that today.  Leave your sentence, your name, and a web address (if you’ve got one) in the comments section and I’ll release all of the sentences next Sunday.  That’s it.  Simple, right?  And to think you were worried.