Because I didn't take a photo

Three birds on branches bare,
Behind, the early morning moon.

Two years ago today

I attended a poetry workshop with Naomi Shihab Nye. Here's one of the poems I wrote.

If love is blind, why do I see you so clearly?
My heart is a breakfast table.
Gather round, for syrup soaked pancakes
hot coffee
and tell what you dreamed in the night.
In the clarity of early morning, our true selves shine.

Stone Soup

Late afternoon was spent by the lake with old friends and their friends. We ate- stone soup, dips, cookies, popcorn, more, and listened to music, and poetry, and the story Stone Soup, which has to be a part of this once annual tradition now being resurrected.
The theme was change. Leila shared a poem about how a tree changes with the seasons, and a fantastic book she worked on this summer. I shared some old poems and a new reflection- the ideas you'll recognize from a post about 6 months ago.

Reflection


It’s fundamental- we all know that 1 and 1 make 2.

And in the start, this is so true and 1 and 1 have lots of fun.

Then one day, we wake up to find that 1 and 1 make 3- the math has changed.

Still it’s okay as 1 and 1 each have two arms and sharing 3 is not too hard.

And even when, though Einstein won’t concur, math takes another twist and

1 and 1 make 4, it still works out- two odds add up to even and chaos is controlled,

More or less.

And there we set, with ledgers balanced out and math at rest, or so we think.

But Math is not as stable as it seems.

The sum will shift, with no warning, tectonic plates collide

and now we find that 1 and 1 will soon make 5.

On a grading break

Needing to read something well-written after several devastatingly bad student essays, I turned to my blog addictions and found an Oliver Wendell Berry poem at Pages Turned.
The essays are all about sustainability- or meant to be, anyway- and this poem dovetails nicely as you can see from these two stanzas from the middle of the poem:

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

International Day of Peace

Red, revisited

My students are presenting on the flags of their countries.
Each colour is a symbol
Blue is for seas or skies
Green the richness of the earth
Black might be the people or the oil
Gold for wealth- in all its forms
And red.
Red is always blood.

It is the same on my flag.
The widest band is yellow gold.
The middle band is blue.
And at the bottom lies the red
A pool of blood
That often overflows.

What if the red were something else?
The soft hibiscus bloom
or joyous bougainvillea
The dirt that clings to feet
and stains our clothes
The feathers of a hummingbird
or bright macaw
The healthy flush on well fed cheeks
Passion, turned from anger into love
The sky at sunset, reflected in a lake.

I want to read this poem to you

I went to the beach and (um- what's this word? Beach.)
I went to the beach.
Something came up behind us,
and bongos
flies
bees
(Question) ?

by Ali.

Written in words and pictures- "but daddy helped me."

Jet lagged

Sweet sleep
which whispers sweet nothings into my ears,
Hold me fast
and do not let me wake before the dawn.