My dad's been gone just over two years now, and I find myself thinking back on the small moments we shared. These musings have me wondering what events my son will one day remember. Will it be eating chocolate gelato at the farmer's market at 8 am? (Yes, that was this weekend!) Will it be curled up on the couch together reading a book? Or perhaps the times hunched over the dining room table working on a puzzle?
Let's write about little things this week--the things we do with others that lead to lasting memories. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.
Let's write about little things this week--the things we do with others that lead to lasting memories. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.
I wrote this one in January but it seems right for this stretch:
ReplyDeleteChamomile
Yes, I prefer a black tea, decaffeinated,
but the golden clusters of chamomile,
ground apple to the Greeks,
teases my eyes with its mustardy flowers.
I drank it with a friend today,
she regaling with me tales of her students,
the books she is teaching, a funny story
about a recumbent bike as I sank deep
into the cup serviced by the dark teapot,
its squat body nubbly as the florets.
Maybe heaven is like this: a cup of tea,
a friend, steam rising from flowers,
and talk of books and bikes.
©Jane Yolen All rights reserved
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThough my youth was the heyday of the cassette tape, my dad was (and is) an amateur disc-jockey, and he shared his love of spinning records with my sisters, brother, and me. Here's an early draft of a riff-in-progress about those lost LP's of the late '70s and early '80s:
ReplyDeletealan freed coined rock and roll in my garage
by steven withrow
when i was nine
in orwell’s year
of doublespeak
and mtv
i learned to be
a fan, a freak
of sound design—
my inner ear
ajar, attuned
to new-wave live
and synthpop bass—
my world began
duran duran
in outer space
while blondie crooned
on forty-five—
one elvis dead—
another dubbed
costello pumped
it up post-punk
and vinyl junk—
the needle jumped
out of its tread
as drum loops drubbed
an auctioneer’s
hypnotic line—
the hiss, the creak
of thirty-three
revolving me—
a cirque plastique—
in orwell’s year
when i was nine
©2011 Steven Withrow, all rights reserved
As an elementary teacher, I encourage my students to find these details, these small moments, in their writing. Without support, "My mom is nice," or, "I like pizza," sentences is all some will risk.
ReplyDeleteTo model this type of writing, I still like to share George Shultz's, Happiness Is a Warm Puppy. Copyrighted in 1962, I still remember when my teacher read this to me!
I also share Joyce Sutphen's "The Book of Hours" found one day on The Writer's Almanac ( http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2007/09/09). Although sophisticated, intermediate students do get it.
When our class wrote about these small moments, I wrote a poem about the cardboard box my daughter turned into an airplane; how she invited me to fly with her. She grabbed the sides of the box and flapped them like wings. The air rushed by my face and I gasped, amazed at how high she took me.
Unfortunately, I think my only copy is in a journal locked up at school for the summer.
The Night Farm
ReplyDeleteOn a stoop
alone
in the dead
of night
and above
the stars
sown like seeds
in the sky.
Sprinkled with
space dust
they explode
and sprout
and I watch
them grow
into a
universe.
C Barbara J. Turner, all rights reserved
COUSINS
ReplyDeleteMaking breakfast
scrambled eggs!
Mosquito bites
on our legs.
Gazing at stars
until dawn
Playing soccer
on our lawn.
Every summer
we are free
To rule the world
You and me.
(c) Charles Waters 2011
TIVO Parties
ReplyDeleteRemote control. Chinese food
in small white boxes. Talk
of her boss and my students.
Pausing the crime show
every five minutes to guess
whodunnit. Old jokes and new ones.
Hugs hello and good-bye.
Evenings spent with my sister,
as simple and important
as a glass of water, with its memories
of ocean and sky.
--Kate Coombs, 2011, all rights reserved
Steve, I love your poem!
ReplyDeleteMy contribution to the Stretch is about place (oh, Paris!) and the small objects we bring home with us to remember those places by.
Tourist
She bought the blouse on the Rue des Rosiers
because she loved the buttons,
all true mother-of-pearl, all small.
Three closed each cuff, one secured the collar,
eleven lined up nicely down the silk
from throat to belly— each button
would be one word in the opening sentence
of her next book, Le Livre des Cent-et-un Fantaisies Parisienes