Poetry Friday - Nature's Nurture

 

  Poetry Friday is with Karen Edmisten, whose blog HERE, is named after her but with the sub-title, "The Blog With the Shockingly Clever Title" always makes me smile! Thanks, Karen, smiles are always welcome!   

     Another long week, just as I wrote two weeks ago. Sometimes we need a break from the news, where we see every day something to take in, wondering how to help, how to press for better. I do want to find answers for helping but taking time to enjoy beauty outside and books inside gives me the energy to find those answers. 

         One recent book I adore is Would You Come Too? by Poetry Friday pal, Liz Garton Scanlon. Although the book appears to invite children out to play in nature, the wonder of it is that she's showing how they would "be" IF they were the animals they will meet.  Of course, those animals come, too! In the briefest of poetic lines, Liz shows us how with the help of colorful joy in Diana Sudyka's illustrations.

 

    One double-page spread shows a tree with birds in flight, and children planting:

               If we were birds, we'd eat berries

               and scatter the seed sweet and bright

And the next double-page:

               If we were seeds, we'd be hopeful,

               reaching for water and light."

          I love the idea of children running with abandon out in a wood, have my own special memories of our family's cabin in the woods as my children grew up. I've had the pleasure of seeing my middle-grade students playing hide 'n seek in snowy woods, shouting with laughter as they dive into snowdrifts to hide. Experiences outside stay with us, don't they?

A favorite page might become your favorite, too, when you see it, those magical shadows of children "boundless and wild and free".

Thanks to Liz, readers can have a getaway from her book!

Celebration Fills The Empty Spaces

          Celebrating with Ruth Ayres at Discover Play Build.  and connecting with others who share their celebrations, too.  

       I took some time posting the following yesterday on Facebook. My words did not come easily, wanting to say something that added to a tough conversation, and now today, many are possibly asking "How can we celebrate?"  But we must not give up what is a fight for what's right. My mother told me of those years in World War II when the family went years without seeing loved ones,  read dreadful headlines of battles all over the world, and didn't know where their loved ones were. They did not give up, and kept living their lives, hopeful, often doubtful, worried, joyful when good news came. I celebrate they made lives matter, for our future goodness. 

       And I celebrate that we persevered and marched in the sixties for Civil Rights, thinking that it wouldn't get better, and it did. Now it's time to fight and march again to make change.

       From FB: There is solace in going about our daily lives, and there is that which pushes us to action, to find something good to hold onto when so much is troubled around us. I am thinking of that "day before", the one where life was good for Philando Castle, Alton Sterling and the police officers, all doing their lives with family and friends, adding to others' lives in good ways. And now it is the "day after". . . and time to step up to make everyone's lives matter, because those lost cannot do that now. We need to do it for them. A Poetry Friday friend posted this poem today. Here is her link: https://kerirecommends.com/…/…/poetry-friday-in-summer-time/ And here are the four lines that touched me, as I hope they touch you, and help you do well with your lives today and tomorrow, too! 

"The summer sounds, and summer sights,
That set a restless mind to rights
When grief and pain and raging doubt
Of men and creeds have worn it out;" Paul Lawrence Dunbar

                       I celebrate and keep on for these children, for all children. How can I not!