Last Wednesday I invited Mary Lee Hahn to teach my class. She is a retired 5th grade teacher in Ohio. Her poem Riches is the first poem in Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s invaluable teacher resource Poems are Teachers. I wanted to share Mary Lee’s poem with my students and when I emailed her, she agreed to meet with my students. The marvel of technology makes author visits reasonable, practical, and possible.
Mary Lee wrote Riches about a photograph. She told us that the bird bath had frozen over with a myriad of leaves in it. Her husband removed the slab of ice and placed it in the sun, and she photograph it. The play of light in the ice attracted her eye and her poetic self.
Mary Lee talked to my students about all the things that she thought about when she wrote the poem. She included thoughts from a book she was reading as well as loving thoughts about her husband, how he sees things that she doesn’t notice.
Today, I invite you to sit with all that is in your head alongside this photo. What surfaces for you? Write a small poem in the comments or on Facebook or on your own blog (or all three!). Be sure to encourage other writers with comments.
My student Avalyn (2nd grade) came to class today and performed for me a poem she had heard on TicTok. At first I wasn’t really paying attention, but as she spoke on, I was drawn in. She memorized Brown Eyes by Nadia McGhee. The line that was in my head when I composed my poem is “Your eyes carry earthquakes that bring mountains to their knees.”
Your eyes
Margaret Simon, draft
like the brown of a leaf in winter
glimmer in the sunlight
and smile at me
when you say,
“I love this poem!”
Reflections on the Teche 
How wonderful! How beautiful! How very Mary Lee. That might just be my poem right there. I need to get in the car and get to school. But, I’m so glad I caught this photo first.
I just saw a quote on twitter by Virginia Woolf. “I meant to write about death…but life came breaking in as usual” It’s almost as if this photograph illustrates my tweet reading!
Look UP
When life
interrupts
even the most tragic
of deaths
one cannot help but
to seek the sun
As the BCP says (at least I think that’s where the quote comes from): “In the middle of life we are in death.” And someone added, “In the middle of death we are in life.” (So much for citing my sources to you, Linda, librarian friend!
OK not sure what the BCP is!! I do like these quotes, Ruth.
I think BCP is the book of Common Prayer. It’s the prayer book for the episcopal church.
YES! Thanks, Margaret, that is it I am sure.
Love the seeking of the sun!
Seeking the sun! Something we all seem to inherently do (or should do).
Beautiful! And so true.
Love the final line–the hope we need in this season
Linda, great title and meaningful poem. I enjoyed how your poem changed into hope and positivity.
I like your initial Ode to Mary Lee! and your Look Up version as well. The sun, the light, the warmth of being kissed by its rays helps in so many ways. I think there is a wonderful message here, Linda, both to the Heavens and if religious, the strength of faith, along with the literal-ness of sunshine. What a message of hope. Which too many need in their darkness despair and don’t know to do this or can’t see even a glimmer of prayer.
Wealth of golden leaves
Shines and sparkles in the sun:
How to spend this day?
Ruth, thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com
Love the question you pose.
A question for every day. Lovely!
love the open question… the possibilities!
Love the juxtaposition of wealth and spend…and the final question.
Ruth, I love how you weave nature’s beauty first, then pose the question. Perfect poem for children and adults.
The word wealth strikes me because its meaning can be taken another way. Nature, indeed, provides wealth.
Maybe choosing the road with golden leaves to see where it leads? You have so much to explore in your new home. And lots of warmth it appears!! What is the “colder” season like there?
World hushed as our tears feil with the warming of the sun
Lovely!
Hushed has the perfect sound for your poem!
Jessica, nice word choices. I especially love how you grabbed my attention with “World hushed”.
Love the image of a hushed world, and “tears fell with the warming of the sun”! Beautiful.
Jessica,
Hoping that the hushing of the world and the warming of the sun will bring more happiness than tears in the end. But to get to the good, some times we have to find that the bad needs to be fixed. Nice.
discards
transform to
jewels
nested in nature’s gifts.
This is a beautiful, tender tribute, Rose.
From discards to jewels–lovely turn in perspective.
Rose, a beautiful poem. Each word of your poem resonates with me because I always discover magic and beauty in nature. Thank you.
Jewels is a wonderful word choice for this photo.
Yes! There are so many gifts if we just look for them. Nature’s jewels abound and return and how lucky we are, if we only realize it. I like how your poem gets at the essence of life.
Curving
bits of nature
leaves circling,
dancing where
no size matters.
Love the movement of circling, dancing!
I love how leaves dance anywhere!
Carol, I enjoy the personification of the “leaves circling” and dancing. Your important line “no size matters” especially sings to me.
You brought the wind into your small poem, and I see the leaves before they were iced over circling in the wind.
Carol,
You had me at dancing. Dancing an no size matters. Abandon and happiness in the circle of life. Lovely poem!
Today’s slice of life —
its shapes and veins
colors, bubbles, and
many points of connection —
takes its place
in the spotlight
Love how your final spotlight line illuminates all that comes before.
You captured the idea of connection so well.
Karen, I love your poem filled with personification, especially “in the spotlight.
Karen, I especially responded to the “many points of connection”, differently coming together for a “slice of life…” that “takes its place in the spotlight.
Life is precious and some moments go unnoticed. Your poem helps us with reflecting on connection and in places we might not think about. Life in the spotlight, shining in hopes we will pay attention. Your poem got me thinking, Karen and I love that.
sunlight spills through ice
igniting autumn leaves–
fallen memories
Sunlight spilling… and igniting… like the word choice…
Buffy, a great haiku. Your word choices “sunlight spills”, “igniting”, and “fallen memories” sing to me.
The sunlight does ignite these leaves, even in their ice enclosure.
I love “sunlight spilling”…and “igniting” the leaves!
Oh, Buffy, fallen memories of green and golden and red and magenta and lime, yellow and more all shown to us in autumn changes. How lucky we are to notice. Your Haiku is lovely.
Love the image of “fallen memories.”
Margaret, there are so many treats in your post that I love. Must have been fun for Mary Lee to teach your class about her beautiful poem in Amy’s amazing book. I read an excerpt of Amy’s Poems of Teachers-WOW. I love Mary Lee’s photo! That photo is full of poems; I wrote many. I love the POV of your poem. I love that simile! “Glimmer in the sunlight” sings to me. I wrote my poem first and then I enjoyed reading everyone’s poems. It’s always interesting to me how from the same photo we all get different ideas for poems and sometimes they’re similar ideas and the same words. Thank you for your inspiring and joyful post.
sun glows through
our leafed skating rink
lighting up our ice dance
© Gail Aldous January 2022
Ooh, ice dance…yes! Amy’s book is like an anthology with commentary from the author. It’s full of riches. Some of my former students have poems in the book.
Thank you. How wonderful that your former students have poems published in Amy’s amazing book!
Skating! Of course! And “lighting up our ice dance”—lovely, Gail…and of course, my favorite part of the Winter Olympics.
Carol, thank you. Skating is my favorite part of the winter Olympics, also! That amazing photo gave me so many poetry ideas. Skating naturally came to me. When I was a young girl, we used to shovel the snow off our pond and skate for hours. Did you skate, also?
Gail, we are so similar in regard to not reading before writing. I am curious but force myself to go with my flow and fearful I might inadvertently select others’ words. I love that you see a skating rink and the leaves that have been dancing in the air, now take their turn on this other stage. I love your poem interpretation!
Traveled yesterday but had it on my “plate” and here’s my draft! I wondered about the icy circle, what was it? I generally read very little of the description or posted poems, something I started with Laura Purdie Salas’s 15 WOL Poems which I loved and which helped nourish me as does this page when I can manage to get here. Can’t wait to read all entries above and comments!
Below the Surface
In the corner there’s a man,
in a cape
talking to his pet dog. Look hard, it’s all there.
I spy a puffer fish gracing this space.
A constellation of distant starts.
Curious, maybe? Can you find the flying
squirrel? The frog trying to reach the sun?
A heart waiting to find its way?
A plate of icy leaves and branches you say?
Open your eyes wider. Look with your heart.
Draft, Janet Clare Fagal
Oops should say * stars, though * starts does sound like it might work…..
Your imagination is set alight by this photo. “Look hard, it’s all there,” and “Look with your heart.”
“Look with your heart”–Makes all the difference.
Oh Janet, your poem is beautiful! I can hear your voice in it talking to your grandchildren or students. Your words sing to me especially, “Open your eyes wider. Look with your heart”. We do think alike because I noticed the shadows looked like images, too. Of course, I saw a cat, or an owl, and I saw something flying. I love all of your detailed images in the photo; I can find most of them. It kind of reminds me of an I Spy book. In fact, your poem reads like a children’s book!
Thank you, Gail. I had fun pretending I was a child for a bit looking at the shapes. But there is a theatrical company out of Chicago whose founders are lifelong friends of my daughter in law. Called Manual Cinema and they do this “cutting edge” yet old-fashioned use of overhead projectors type shadow puppets to tell amazing stories. Worth a google if it sounds at all interesting. They perform world-wide and are so creative. We watched A Christmas Carol during Covid that they live streamed. So I became sort of fascinated by all of this, since silhouettes and shadow puppets etc have always captivated me with I would say curiosity.(And theater is very close to my heart.)
Janet, thank you for mentioning the shadow puppet company. I love any kind of puppets! I will check it out. Theater is close to my heart, also. I love musicals. Our girls were in quite a few musicals when they were young. I miss going to live productions because of Covid. I can’t breathe well with masks on.
Margaret,
You had me at “I learned this poem on Tik Tok” and she’s in 2nd grade, wow. I went to find it. Not sure I’ve read it before, just beautiful and more so that your darling student recited it. Richness on so many levels. Your poem, I can just imagine it, how much you love watching her eyes glimmer because she loves a poem. It is a wondrous kind of love, the love of a poem we hold “in our hearts forever.”
Thank you, Margaret, for the honor of being featured in your post and visiting author in your classroom. What a treat to read all the different poems this photo inspired! Like Janet, I did my writing before I peeked at all the other offerings. I’ve been looking at the world through a mathematical lens for one poetry challenge, and with an eye on my metaphor dice word list for Taylor Mali’s challenge. This is what I came up with:
In this case,
beauty is a glorified lens of ice
rimmed with light
magnifying
the passage of time.
Mary Lee, I love the metaphor rolled into this poem magnifying the passage of time. Here is a link to my student responses. Click on the comments to see their poems. https://fan.school/article?id=dxuSyRVbPQpr6Zic46kc
Mary Lee, I love your idea of the ice being a lens. Every word of your poem sings to me and I see the images. Beautiful!
Thanks, Janet F. for introducing me to this site & challenge. I love the responses above! Here’s my go:
Frozen for a season,
Red and yellow autumn leaves
Trapped in yesterday,
Like insect fossils in amber.
Jane, I’m so excited that you joined us! Those amazing fossils in amber!
Jane, I love your poem; these lines especially sing to me
“Trapped in yesterday, Like insect fossils in amber”. Beautiful!
Oh, so happy to see YOU here, Jane. Oh those trapped fossils! Yes! And if only all our worries could become unfrozen after a season……and renewed. Once again we can look to nature for clues, right? Hope you will be back!
Thank you, Margaret, Gail, and Janet!