A big thank you to Heidi Mordhorst for hosting today and for taking the time and energy to create a video about our work with students as teaching artists. I learned so much from Jone and Heidi that I hope to add to my repertoire of workshops.
National Poetry Month is moving along in starts and stops for me. One day the words come, the next I look at a page full of senseless scribbles. I am trying to respond daily to the Ethical ELA VerseLove prompts. Yesterday, Stacey Joy of California prompted us to write an etheree. I wrote once again about wood ducks. (I have a whole book of poems about the Wood Duck house) Our first clutch hatched and fledged, so we have another hen coming in. I am endlessly fascinated by them.
Anticipating
When
eastern
sunlight gleams
a beam across
greening cypress trees,
another wood duck hen
flies in, wiggles her belly
beginning a new clutch to watch
in hope for new life to lay waiting.
Cycle of birth always a miracle.Margaret Simon, draft
The Kidlit Progressive Poem took a surprising turn this week with a Poetry Slam! Check out today’s line with Robyn Hood Black.
Tabatha Yeatts has graciously offered to end the poem on April 28th. She had the beginning line and is the creator of the map.
Reflections on the Teche 
I don’t know that we have wood ducks in my neck of the woods, I don’t think I recognize them! They’re beautiful! We don’t have any ducklings yet, but soon enough the pond in our local park should be full of fluffy adorableness.
I love reading your poems about the wood ducks, Margaret. Wow! A second clutch! Thank you. I also enjoyed the video you made with Heidi and Jone – lots of inspiration.
Thanks for watching the video. It was fun to make. I hope our poet-joy comes across.
And I love your endless fascination with the wood ducks because you share them so beautifully with us in your poetry. Mama wood duck wiggles … wonderful! What a sweet and fun beginning of a clutch. I’m listening to the video of you with Heidi and Jone right now. It’s good, Margaret…really, really good. I’m learning and enjoying the talk between the three of you!
Thanks for your support. It was fun to do the video. Heidi is a good moderator!
Margaret, your etheree gently and progressively captures the circle of life in the natural world. I am reserving time this afternoon to watch the video. Looking forward to the shared conversation.
You really captured cycle of life in the etheree. I feel this:”he next I look at a page full of senseless scribbles.”
Margaret, there is beauty in your poem and the photo you chose. “Cycle of birth always a miracle.” Tabatha for the ending line-how wonderful!
And via your words and videos, I, too, am now endlessly fascinated! Go, hen, go!
Oh, my, what beautiful music you provide for the new hen to nest by:
“When
eastern
sunlight gleams
a beam across
greening cypress trees”
Thank you, Margaret, for sharing YOUR experience and wisdom in that conversation.<3
Margaret, ooh, those beautiful internal rhymes. I am a wood duck fan, too. The little pond in our neighborhood has some each year, but they are hard to spot.
Your etheree is lovely and makes me want to settle in and watch over that clutch. ❤️
I’m planning to settle in this afternoon and watch the full video of you, Heidi, and Jone!
Beautiful internal rhymes! It must be lovely to watch the wood duck families grow.
First, thanks for sharing on the video… yes, I watched the entire 30+ minutes. Second, your etheree is beautiful–the use of assonance and the way line by line you created not only a poem but also a sentence… and punctuated it accordingly. I love to have students take a poem like yours, cut the lines apart, string them together (keeping their order in the poem) to create a sentence. It shows them how a long well-written sentence full of imagery can be shaped into a beautiful poem. Sometimes we have to add a function word to make it a grammatically correct sentence, and they learn to be concise in poetry.
Thank you so much for this comment. It’s nice to know when anything I say or do is inspirational. Your support means a lot.
OH, how special to have two in one season (Maybe that’s not special, but ordinary! I don’t really know.) But anyway, it must be a delight, as you said to watch in hope, always a miracle. Lovely!
We don’t always get two clutches. This will be a good year for the wood ducks. Two years ago the second clutch was black bellied squealers “whistling” ducks. They are similar in nesting habits but larger birds.