Sloth video from my phone. Turn sound down or off. The guide explains the different kinds of sloths near the end. This is a two-toed sloth.
Slow Sloth
I am to you scribbles of God. My two toes touch the heavens on leaves like tea left behind for someone to read, a lie between sun and moon. I am blind to you. As I slowly pass through parting seas of green, only the fruit follows me. I know heaven is green as all sorrow in amorphous shape. I neglect symbols, and drink from mud. I stop and sleep because you are always there.
Margaret Simon, 2022
I wrote this poem after Swift Hummingbird by Ray Bradbury. On Ethical ELA, Jennifer Guyor Jowett introduced antonymic translation in this week’s Open Write. Ray Bradbury wrote of the hummingbird which immediately made me think of the sloth we saw in Costa Rica last week. It was fun to write a poem about it.
Two-Toed Sloth, Wikimedia Commons
Molly Hogan, fellow Inkling, sent me a Summer Poem Swap. Her tranquil poem sent me the blessing I needed along with some homemade (by Molly) strawberry jam and other goodies. Thanks, Molly, for the full-of-care package.
My friend, poet Buffy Silverman is releasing a new word-blooming picture book, On a Gold-Blooming Day coming September 6, 2022. This rhythmic, rhyming, all-about-fall book is enchanting from start to finish. You will be transported to the season through words and images.
From On a Gold-Blooming Day, photos by Buffy Silverman
I asked Buffy to tell us how she is inspired to write.
I have been fascinated with the natural world for as long as I can remember. When I was six I collected a jar full of grasshoppers from an empty lot to keep as pets in the garage. I learned the hard way that insects need oxygen! I spent hours perched in the branches of our maple tree as a kid, watching the world below.
I still search out the small animals that share our habitat. We are lucky to live at the swampy end of a small lake, with frogs, turtles, birds, and woods as neighbors. We stopped mowing most of our backyard about twenty years ago, and a meadow has grown in its place, attracting a variety of insects. Now I collect critters with my camera instead of in a jar, and try to share what I see through my writing. My hound keeps me walking every day, no matter what the weather or season, so I get plenty of opportunity to make new discoveries!
I hope that my words might inspire a young person to look more closely at and fall in love with the world around them. The world desperately needs a generation of environmentalists, and I think that is most likely to happen if children spend time outdoors, make their own discoveries, and fall in love as I did with nature.
Buffy Silverman
From On A Gold-Blooming Day by Buffy Silverman
This golden glowing book is for preschool through 3rd graders. The back matter provides more information about the animals and plants mentioned in the text and images. A glossary of new words helps developing readers. Add this book to your fall reading list. Buffy’s website is here.
Poetry Friday is hosted today by Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
This month’s Inkling challenge comes from Heidi Mordhorst: I’m looking out at my yard, my garden, and no matter what’s happening outside or in, THE PLANTS KEEP GROWING. They rarely give up. There are so many ways in which we’ve all (but especially as women, as educators) had to be persistent, despite our weariness. Write a poem (for kids or adults) about PERSISTENCE.
Heidi suggested a model poem by Tony Hoagland, Please Don’t. I borrowed a few lines and the word swobtoggle.
Dandelion Garden
Hello, dandelions in the ditch,
You pop forth taller than I’ve ever seen, reaching higher for a taste of the sun
before the storm comes to swobtoggle* your seeds away.
You look at me with a wispy wink waiting for a child to hold & blow.
Persistent in your volunteer work knowing someday soon, you will fly.
Each summer Tabatha connects us kidlit poets by coordinating a poem swap. My first poem swap was with Kat Apel, all across the globe in Australia. Believe it or not, we have met face to face. She is a tall, sunshiny gal. I finally got around to sending her a poem yesterday, and she has shared it with the world today. Check it out here.
Kat loves nature and often writes about it. She has watched our wood duck nesting box project over social media. She sent me this poem a few weeks ago. She captured the photo from my video, so cute with two ducklings peeking out. The poem is a lai form (which I looked up here.)
Honestly, I’m not sure if I’ll be home soon. I’m glad you were able to see me. I love how you hear a different story from my eyes,
how we find honesty under the moon– a strawberry moon rising– like a beacon through the trees.
You read me with an elder’s wisdom. Tears well up when you hold my heart with your eyes, how they flow with knowing. Your own tears leaking onto your cheek.
You never even met my father, but he was speaking through you, his presence nowhere and everywhere.
Honestly, the well of deep compassion grows when watered with our tears.
This week was the first week of Simon Summer Camp with the visit of Thomas, better known as Tuffy. We have had a wealth of experiences each day. How do you build memories for a 2.9 year old? Why, you sing about it, of course. Tuffy and I have been singing along to the brilliant and everlasting Raffi. (If you’re a grandmother, you must download his songs.)
I haven’t had much time to spend alone writing poetry, but that’s as it should be. I missed posting yesterday on actual Friday. His mother is back from her “trip.” The song we sang together to tell her about his camp week is sung to the tune of “If You’re Happy and You Know it.” When I sang it to him last night at bed time, he cuddled up on my shoulder, and I looked at my daughter and whispered, “I think I’m going to cry.” He popped his head right up and said, “Don’t cry, Mamère!” Then we all laughed and laughed. Pure Joy!
Uncle Ric fixed your tires, so you could stroll. Svitlana gave you vegetables to grow. CeCe watered flowers and plants in her yard, And Mr. Al waved good-bye.
KiKi showed you sculptures you could touch. She told you all about them, oh so much. Sophie made quesadilla out of play dough, And Rylee chased water rainbows.
Image by Linda Mitchell Round up this week is with Karen Edmisten.
Today is the first Friday of June, so that means Inkling Challenge! My writing group rotates a challenge for each month, and we post on the first Friday of the month as a group, The Inklings! This month Molly Hogan challenged us to write about a domestic task.
Truth be told, I did not read the mentor poem or write about spring cleaning because the truth is I’ve been very ill. I got Covid on a family trip to Seattle and had to stay alone in a hotel room for five days. My husband’s brother, who is a doctor, was nearby and on call for me, but there wasn’t much he could do. I just had to get through it, so I could fly home. I made it home on Saturday night. I’m still recovering, but I no longer have the virus. On Sunday morning, I read The Writer’s Almanac and used the poem “Joy” by George Bilgere as a mentor text. His poem was about recovering from the flu. I borrowed a few lines. The form helped me write again which brought me Joy.
Joy
after George Bilgere
Today I sit in the kitchen with a glass of Gatorade, on ice, my daily cocktail. The door is open to let in cool morning air. I sit with my body, just the two of us for a change. Covid has left us and moved on to someone else, with its knife well-sharpened to gut and leave behind loose limp skin.
I am sitting in amazement that I am able to be here breathing. Amazed at a body’s will to survive even in the deepest dark cave of fear.
For a while I thought I would never get better. That I would dissolve into dust in a hotel room alone, not discovered for days.
But every day there are miracles. We wake up. We taste and smell the air. Tiny eggs in a nest hatch into finches that will fly.
Today I sit watching a prothonotary flutter at the window, make a mental note to refill the feeders. The desert rose at my front door welcomes me home with a fireworks show.
One of the wisdoms I have gained as a writer is that writing with others creates strong friendships because writing is such an act of vulnerability. It is true for the classroom, for writing workshops, and for critique groups. My group, the Inklings, are true friends. They listen, respond with integrity, and encourage me as a person as well as a writer. We live far away from each other, but we used Zoom long before the pandemic, and see each other twice monthly. This is all to say that when my father died, they did what they do best, and sent me a book of poems. I sat alone with these poems and let the comfort and wisdom of words wash over me. I offer a video today of me reading each poem sitting out by my beloved bayou. It’s 8 minutes long.
Awakening the Heart by Georgia Heard is a go-to book for me. I recently came back to it to find an inspiring poetry lesson (page 48) around a stanza of Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem Valentine for Ernest Mann.
We watched this video of Naomi reading it and telling the story of its inception. Then we borrowed the words poems hide for our own poems. Avalyn says it’s the best poem she’s ever written (in her year of writing poetry with me.)
I was reminded of a resident at my parents’ retirement home. When my father was ill, I stayed with my mother in her apartment and got to know many of her friends. This is a true story about Angel, but after I gave her a copy of the poem, she had to correct me that the cats do trust her and let her pet them.
Poems Hide in an Instagram image of sunrise a small songbird the trickle of water over a streambed.
Poems hide in the calico that lost its tail in the woman named Angel who sits on the ground to feed the lonely cat, her hand out, longing for trust.
Angel laughs in poetry.
She gives me a Styrofoam cup of cut roses aflame in her hand. I find poetry in the things I touch and in your forever love.
Margaret Simon, all rights reserved
Poetry Hides by Avalyn, 2nd grade
poetry hides in talent,
poetry hides in your favorite stuffed toy
poetry hides in the beautiful Robin you saw hurt on the ground
poetry hides in yourself and all beings
poetry hides in magnolia flowers
poetry hides in the things you love most
poetry hides in the ones that helped you get awards and medals
poetry hides in the lost and found shared memories
poetry hides in your life and soul
poetry hides in the book of quotes that helps you feel grateful
There’s a loss of energy in grief, a sadness that is heavy and weighs you down. I’m not at all sure that writing helps, but writing for me is the most personal act and wherever I am, my writing is there, too.
Over at Ethical ELA, Shaun Ingalls posted a prompt inspired by Alicia Mountain’s “Drift” inviting us to re-encounter something with a new perspective.
I Hold an Acorn
in my hand in a field of clover.
Am I a child now? Walking with sun bright in my eyes as it rises above the live oaks?
It is spring, to be sure, a time of resurrection. Yet you are not here.
I cannot call you or text (You never learned how to text), so I stand in the field, hold the acorn lift it to smell my childhood, like the scent of the Paschal candle, anointing to save, to savor.
I am here. You are not.
Margaret Simon, draft
Grandmother oak in the morning. Photo by Margaret Simon
The Kidlit Progressive Poem is nearly complete. You can follow its progress with the schedule on the side bar. Karen has the next to last line today.
Margaret Simon lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana. She is a retired elementary gifted teacher who writes poetry and children's books. Welcome to a space of peace, poetry, and personal reflection. Walk in kindness.
Reflections on the Teche 