My Husband Has A Birthday

       Today is my husband's birthday.  We've been married a very long time, and celebrated many special days.  Each year brings new celebrations-birthdays of children and grandchildren, new grandchildren, and the times that we just arise in the morning, give each other a kiss and give thanks for the day to come.  Here is a poem I wrote a few years ago for my love, and some words randomly brainstormed that remind me of our time together:


      Riding on a mini motorcycle for a few weeks (he helped me get over the fear of it), playing games with dear friends (always served drinks and snacks to all of us), putting up a high swing in a tree (I worried that he would fall, but he did it), climbing mountains together (putting up with my griping about the climb), hiking in Costa Rica (with my students, too-was a special chaperone to certain students who needed extra support), our first baby arriving (taking the 5 am feeding), just the two of us staying at our cabin and listening to coyotes howling (extra hugs and assurances), and on and on...  Our song, Side By Side, says it better than I can.

  My Love Song

Come stay with me

and hug a while;

your arms will only

make me smile.

My days are joyous

with yet one fear—

an empty life

without you near.

Enough of sadness

I’ll live life true;

savoring minutes

spent with you.

Poets Disagree About November

   Poetry Friday Can Be Found and Savored this week at Tabatha Yeatts: The Opposite of Indifference

     A favorite poem of the autumn season is an old one, by Thomas Hood from the mid 1800’s.  It is  titled NO! and can be found at All Poetry.  At that site, I discovered that Hood also published a shorter version of some of the lines from this poem and titled it November, found at PoemHunter.  Even after some research, I could not find which poem came first.  One could argue either way, I suppose.  Perhaps Hood wrote the shorter one, then expanded it.  Or he wrote the longer one, and decided to shorten it for some particular reason.  I’ve loved the poem NO! for years, find it clever and easy for young students to enjoy.  For some parts of our country, this is definitely the weather in the eleventh month of the year.  For us in Colorado, not as much.  We still have our days with NO sun, but not very many.  Here are the first lines of the poem November.

No sun - no moon!

No morn - no noon -

No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,

As I write this, it is sunny and the weatherman predicts 60 plus degrees.  Colorado weather is mostly lovely, but not always, so I intend to enjoy this contradictory day as much as possible.  Our November is often lovelier than the poet Thomas Hood describes.  

On the other hand, a poet special in my eyes and still writing today is Cynthia Rylant, whose words in the picture book In November create lovely pictures worth illustrating, as is done so beautifully by Jill Kastner.  In Rylant's opinion,  trees are standing all sticks and bones.  Without their leaves, how lovely they are, spreading their arms like dancers.  She believes also that Food is better than any other time of the year. And that food has an orange smell.  Even the ending, a blessing of sorts on winter, is sweeter and more optimistic compared to Hood's persistent "NO'S".  

I still enjoy Hood's poem every year, however, but also love Rylant's book.  The poem by Hood is pragmatic instead of nostalgic, and tongue in cheek instead of sentimental.  There is room for both kinds of poetic response in my world of favorites.

Watching Out For The Nice Ones

Tuesday Slice of Life can be found-and enjoyed at the Two Writing Teachers blog.  

Some of you know that I have a new granddaughter, born at the end of July.  My daughter recently returned to work, and because I work only the middle three days of the week, my husband, who is retired, and I have committed to keeping baby Imogene Marie on Mondays, at least until a nanny is found.  The older sister who is two and one-half attends a Montessori school.  We started last Monday, and yesterday was our second day.  As we spend the day with Imogene, we learn that this baby has to be the most serene and content baby we’ve ever met.  She is quite different from her older sister as a baby, is undemanding, smiles and coos at us whenever we talk to her and hold her, rarely cries, and only then if we’re a little slow in readying her next feeding.  After being fed, she plays with us for a while, then goes to sleep when we lay her in her crib.  Amazing.  We are all in a little awe of this little person and wonder what she’ll be like as she grows older. 

Imogene Marie - 2 1/2 months

 As I’ve spoken with Imogene’s parents, and thought about her, her demeanor has brought me to think again of certain students I’ve had in the past, both girls and boys, whom we often call nice.  They are the students who turn in assignments on time and meet expectations, are friendly and respectful to everyone, and who also often stay in the background, allowing others to take their turn first, share materials they own, and so on.  One could also call them generous in spirit, and relatively calm and quiet. 

We in education talk about at risk students, and work hard to help them fill needs that are vital in their lives to fill.  We speak of students who cry out for extra support because they have extraordinary challenges; they are diagnosed with ADHD perhaps, and struggle academically until scaffolds are put in place.  There are others who have physical challenges, and take time from teachers in order to be taught adaptations for their learning.  Numerous students take time because they really need it. 

And then there are the nice students.  I worry that they remain at the end of the line because teachers just run out of time to see if they are being all that they can be.  They don’t ask, don’t need, and can continue on with little attention.  I want us to notice them, too.  If we didn’t make extra efforts for Imogene, I wonder if she would just smile and coo and even continue to progress in her baby ways, as she has.  But is that what we should do?  Should we say, oh, she’ll be okay; she’s such a nice baby?  I want to be sure that she and all the nice kids get the attention too, to receive extraordinary instruction because they can receive it so well, to learn to self-advocate, and to add to their repertoire of skills because they can, if someone offered.  Am I being too picky?  I don't think so.  Yet, I certainly know that there is a finite amount of time and energy that teachers have to spend. 

 Imogene has managed to remind me of that child in the classroom that rarely demands anything of me as a teacher, you know, the nice one.   And I will try to find ways to meet those students' needs too.

One Book That You Don't Put Down - Really!

         I just started and finished a 640 page book.  I read straight through with only a pause to get a drink.  It is a book lately reviewed and/or mentioned by many.  This book is amazing, satisfying, intriguing, mysterious, full of pictures, but not a picture book, and wondrous.  It is Wonderstruck, by Brian Selznick.  I couldn't read all the reviews, but did read some.  None could give away much more than the beginning questions asked by the main character.  I was enthralled by the ideas toward the end of the book, and the analogy given that applies to writing.  Read the book;  you will love it!

A Remembrance

 Poetry Friday can be found with April Halprin Wayland at Teaching Authors!  Enjoy!

It’s Veterans Day today.  I am grateful to those in the past and who now offer their lives to keep us safe.  Some do not return, like my father in World War II.  I am saddened when I see today that children are still losing the sweet relationship of parent and child.  Some veterans return to fight the other war within themselves to regain the life they had.  I hope for them in that terrible conflict.   

John Gillespie Magee, Jr. was an American aviator and poet who died as a result of a mid-air collision during World War II.  He was serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force, which he joined before the United States officially entered the war, as did my father. Here is the beginning of a poem many of you may know; it was dear to my mother’s heart and is dear to mine. 

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds, --and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of

The whole poem can be found here.