Poetry Friday round-up is with Buffy at Buffy’s Blog.
I have grown-up children and am very grateful for it, especially in light of the new elf-on-the-shelf craze. I think I would fail miserably at being in charge of creative ways to position an elf each night. However, when December was coming, the elf-on-the-shelf became a topic in my students’ writing. One afternoon I left the room for a bit and when I returned, my students had positioned Jack the lemur hanging from a chair. Chloe said, “I think Jack has an elf inside him!”
Since then, Jack has found many creative ways to make mischief in our classroom. This phenomenon led me to respond with a poetic letter to Jack.
Dear Jack-on-the-shelf,
Your personality is showing through
the things you like to do.
Play Bananagrams.
Spell “I Love You.”
Hang with Santa.
Curl up in tissue.
Each day, Chloe looks for you
to see where you’ll be found.
You make our class time
full of joy.
I hope you’ll stick around.Love,
Mrs. Simon
I’ve been participating in Mary Lee Hahn’s #haikuforhope this month. On Twitter, we are all using this hashtag to share our small poems of hope. I’ve posted mine on this blog daily.
In class every day, we choose a quote to write from. On Monday, I wrote a haiku from this quote by E. S. Bouton, “True wisdom lies in gathering the precious things out of each day as it goes by.” I was talking to a friend about the birth of my grandson, and she told me about a book called Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Even within the happiest of moments, catastrophe lies. We need to use the art of mindfulness to be aware and live fully through these moments.
Gathering moments
of happy catastrophe
into precious life.Margaret Simon
Reflections on the Teche 