On Friday, my students and I read a poem by William Carlos Williams, “Approach of Winter.” I subscribe to a lesson email from Poets.org that is designed for middle and high school, but occasionally the lesson works for my kids, too. You can sign up for the weekly emails here.
To get in the right mindset to write about the coming of winter, we walked outside. The plan was to go to the garden, but heavy rain the night before left multiple puddles to navigate, and then it started to misty rain, so we ran back inside. This didn’t lead into much amazing writing, but I later wrote a small poem about that misty rain.
Approach of Winter
after William Carlos WilliamsThe mist
like wet dust
tickles my nose
while clouds
hover
in grey sadness
dewdrops
of icy speckles
tasting
of coming cold.(c) Margaret Simon
In keeping with the December haiku-a-day challenge, I turned thoughts to creating a shorter poem about coming winter.
Stratus clouds hover
yellow billows bending
Sweet sugar promise(c) Margaret Simon
Reflections on the Teche 
Love that ‘sweet sugar promise’! If only we could have a misty rain! Fun to be with students during that time!