Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts
For DigiLit Sunday, I invited friends to submit flower poems for this Thinglink video. I have been working on Thinglink this summer through their teacher’s challenge. I have also been participating in the National Writing Project and Innovative Educators Making Learning Connected (CLMOOC). Thinglink offered me a preview of their video application. CLMOOC challenged us this week to think about games. Combining the two, we played with flower poems. I want to thank those who took the challenge to write a flower poem and contribute to this video: Sheri Edwards, Diane Mayr, Linda Baie, and Kaylie Bonin. Each flower poem is linked to the video. I used Tapestry to publish the poems.
Thinglink is offering to you, my readers, an early access code to Thinglink for video. First sign up for a teacher account on Thinglink. Then login to your account on video.thinglink.com This is your unique access code: tlvideo_for_reflectionsontheteche.
Ruth Ayres invites us the celebrate each week. Click over to her site Discover. Play. Build. to read more celebrations.
This story of friendship begins in one of the smallest towns in Mississippi in the early 60’s. Memory is a curious thing. I don’t remember much from age 7 to 12, but I have vivid memories of this time in Centerville when I was 3-5 years old. Sarah and Larry were my brother and my best friends. We must’ve spent every day together. I can remember climbing trees and playing hide and seek. I remember Larry’s fire red hair and Sarah’s wavy black hair. I remember the scent of live oak trees. Vivid memories.
I met Sarah again a few years ago, and we became Facebook friends. We connected and found many ways we are alike. I have 3 daughters in their twenties; she has four. We both have amazing husbands we adore. But more than that, I think when you’ve known someone all your life, something special is there, always.
I am celebrating reconnecting with Sarah. My husband and I took an impromptu trip to Houston. We dropped in on Sarah and her husband Reese, enjoyed hours of wine and cheese. Amazing Reese (this is what Sarah calls him) makes an amazing homemade bread. And then before we left, they broke out the guitar and ukelele and serenaded us. A wonderful blessed evening.
A friend posted a video on Facebook. You may have seen it, too, of the elapsed time photos of flowers blooming. I was inspired to write short poems, haiku-type, about the different flowers. For each one, I googled the flower and used facts in the creation of the poem. For example, a gladiola is also known as a sword lily. Then I found creative commons photos, uploaded to Tapestry, and wrote a poem. I would like to include more poems in my Thinglink video creation, so if you would like to add a poem, please write one in the comments. Or you can do it in Tapestry and send me the link. I’ll post the link for the final video on Sunday on my DigiLit Sunday post. Also, on Sunday I’ll have an offer code from Thinglink for early access to Thinglink for video.
In our house, there is a light
beckoning
welcoming
leading the way
home.
Laura Purdie Salas posts a photo each Thursday and asks readers to write a 15 words or less poem. This is today’s poem from me. If you want to read other poems and participate, click over to Laura’s blog.
Follow this link to read more spiritual journey posts.
Holly Mueller has started a Thursday blog roundup about Spiritual Journeys. One of my favorite things about blogging is connecting with people like Holly. Click on the image above to read her post and others linked up. I’m sure you’ll be glad you did.
Holly’s theme for today is capacious. Capacious means roomy, spacious, generous. Today, I celebrate a capacious walk, one that fills my open heart and helps me see the love of God in the beauty of nature.
Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.
I almost didn’t write a slice this morning. See, there’s just not much happening here. As I sit in front of my computer with Charlie on my lap and listen to the cicadas buzzing their summer heat tune, I have very little on my brain. But this is good, right?
Mom’s mandevilla reworked in painteresque.
Julie Johnson at Raising Readers and Writers wrote her post today about weeding her garden, but it’s not really about weeding her garden. It’s really about finding your joy inspired by a book A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger. I don’t have the book yet, but I was struck by this section on Julie’s blog.
In A More Beautiful Question, Berger pushes his reader when he asks, “Why are you climbing the mountain?” He describes those “who are trying to do everything – attend every conference, take every call, answer every message, read every tweet, seize every opportunity – not so much because we want to, but because we feel we must, just to keep up.” (Had he been peeking into my life too?)
He prods his reader further by asking:
What is waiting for me at the top?
What am I going to do once I get there?
Am I enjoying the climb itself? Should I slow down, speed up?
What am I leaving behind, down below?
Yes, Julie, he is peeking into my life, too. Are we all like this? Overscheduling and overdoing? Keeping busy every minute of every day?
Last week I traveled home to my parents’. I traveled alone, no children or husband, just me. I did this last summer, too, and loved my week with Mom and Dad. I now believe that this time is a beautiful thing. I didn’t do much. I read, walked, blogged, painted, took pictures, and I talked with my parents. Nothing memorable happened. I relaxed and did exactly what brings me joy. I didn’t climb a mountain or make any grand decision.
We all need to remind ourselves that it is OK not to climb the mountain every day. And to choose our mountains carefully.
Follow this link to read more spiritual journey posts.
I’d like to invite those of you who ponder these big questions and write about your spiritual journey to join Holly Mueller’s new roundup on Thursdays. We are writing and connecting in many ways.
Join the Chalk-a-bration at Betsy Hubbard’s site Teaching Young Writers.
Link up with Teach Mentor Texts
Today is the last day of June and it’s Monday, so what am I reading? I’m combining two posts today. I am missing my students because Chalk-a-bration was one of their favorite days of the month. I am at the lake with my parents with no access to kids or to a sidewalk (much less a piece of chalk), so I played with my iPad and wrote a quote from one of the books I read this week, how i discovered poetry by Marilyn Nelson.
What a lovely book! Marilyn Nelson writes a memoir of growing up in the late 50’s with 50 intimate poems. Each poem is both deeply personal as well as universal. Marilyn’s father was in the military, so they moved often. Marilyn captures the feelings of being moved from place to place. I was touched by the poems dealing with having to leave their pets behind. “Daddy pulled a puppy from the pocket/ of his flight jacket, and we imprinted/ like a gosling to a goose. Speida’s my dog,/ though he’s impartially affectionate.”
Marilyn’s mother prided herself on being a First Negro. As they move from base to base, they are often the only black family. “Making History takes more than standing in line/ believing little white lies about pain./ Mama says First Negroes are History…That lady in Montgomery just became a First/ by sqwunching up her eyes and sitting there.”
This little book is an important one with a very personal, first hand account of living in the late 50’s. #WeNeedDiverseBooks: This one is going on my shelf for my students as we study memoir and history.
The Year of Billy Miller took me back to being in second grade. There is so much to love about this book. Billy is just a fun kid to be with. He wants to be brave and stay up all night but ends up in his sister’s room falling asleep with her. Billy has to write a poem and perform it in front of an audience. I enjoyed watching the development of his poem. Kevin Henkes does not make Billy Miller a brilliant writer but shows us a real boy. He has the typical feelings of a seven year old boy and his family is most important to him. This book makes you smile.
I am currently listening to Inkheart by Cornelia Funke, a great book to listen to on my long car ride home today. What are you reading?
Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts
I am not a grandmother yet, but this week made me feel old. The CLMOOC make cycle #2 was on making memes. High learning curve for me. For one thing, you must be tuned in to popular culture…not! And another, you had to have something clever to say…another not! So I got a little rebellious and decided that memes were just not for me.
During the week I posted this silly picture of my cat, Mimi. She loves to perch on top of books. This makes her look especially intelligent. My husband made the comment that she was in her literary post. On my Facebook post, Julie Johnson commented that I could make a meme of that. Since Mimi was sitting on top of Donalyn Miller’s books, I created a caption about book whispering. The post only got 5 likes. Needless to say, I don’t think I get this meme thing.
But I do like that I am out there in this digital world taking a dare. Trying to be brave. Trying to be digitally literate. In all honesty, I will not be using memes with my students; they are only elementary age. Then comes this question from the Connected Learning team, “How do we turn the principles of Connected Learning into memes that spread in an educational setting?”
The CLMOOC principles are important for education. See Why Connected Learning. These principles should be spread. Am I responsible for spreading them in my small corner of the universe? As responsible as I am to any principle that I believe in, so whatever I may personally think about memes and my ability to create a clever one, I should find a way to express the principles of Connected Learning.
Ruth Ayres invites us the celebrate each week. Click over to her site Discover. Play. Build. to read more celebrations.
I’m here at the lake
Quietly watching the day go by
Talking with Mom and Dad
Taking a walk in the morning breeze
Eating the perfect pancake
Relishing the gift of time
Lingering and loving life
I do not remember who introduced me to the poetry of Barbara Crooker, but I want to thank you. I am reading Line Dance published in 2008 by Word Press. Barbara Crooker speaks to me. She writes with rich imagery and real life events, touching my heart and my inner poet. She is also a very nice person. When I decided to review her book here on my blog, I wrote her an email from the contact information on her website. Imagine my excitement when, not 24 hours later, she had written me back!
I had a hard time deciding which poem to feature because they are all so good. In the title poem, the lines dance literally on the page as Barbara connects the people she loves in a dance at her daughter’s wedding. “everyone I’ve ever loved/ is here today, even the dead, raising a glass/ and dancing, circling around the bride/ in her frothy gown, bubbles rising/ in a fluted glass, spilling out, running over.”
The collection begins in winter when her father dies “through the narrow window, the cold sky/ stretched blameless, white and blue, behind him.” We are taken on a journey through grief, but not without hope. “this old blue world will keep on spinning, without you.” from Blues for Karen. And then comes Valentine’s Day when she strings hearts in all the windows. “The heart wants and wants and wants some more. Spring so far in the distance.”
Our hearts break with hers and are put back together with the puzzle pieces of her words.
Listen,
I want to tell you something. This morning
is bright after all the steady rain, and every iris,
peony, rose, opens its mouth, rejoicing.
I want to say, wake up, open your eyes, there’s
a snow-covered road ahead, a field of blankness,
a sheet of paper, an empty screen. Even
the smallest insects are singing, vibrating
their entire bodies, tiny violins of longing
and desire. We were made for song.
I can’t tell you what prayer is, but I can take
the breath of the meadow into my mouth,
and I can release it for the leaves’ green need.
I want to tell you your life is a blue coal, a slice
of orange in the mouth, cut hay in the nostrils.
The cardinals’ red song dances in your blood.
Look, every month the moon blossoms
into a peony, then shrinks to a sliver of garlic.
And then it blooms again.
— Barbara Crooker, from Line Dance, all rights reserved.
The natural world sings in Barbara Crooker’s poetry. In Peony, “Imagine the hard knot of its bud,/ all that pink possibility.” Her poem, One Song (after Rumi), sounds like a concert of birds, beginning with a cardinal in all its red, then a chickadee adds percussion. The sun even comes out to join the chorus. And ends with “All the world breathes in, breathes out./ It hums, it throbs, it improvises./ So many voices. Only one song.”
So many voices. Only one song. Thank you, Barbara, for allowing me to be witness to your song. What a joy!
Thanks to Tabatha Yeatts for organizing the Summer Poem Swap.
My own poem written for Robyn Hood Black for the Summer Poetry Swap is featured on Robyn’s site today.
Follow this link to read more spiritual journey posts.
I love the connections I have made through blogging. One of these wonderful bloggers is Holly Mueller. She wrote last week on Thursday about wanting to start a link-up, round-up, meme thing for Thursdays on the theme of the spiritual journey. I told her I was in, so here we are, another writing adventure. Please go to her blogspot using the link above and read.
Heron in flight by Beth Gibson Saxena
I am at the lake. My parents moved here 24 years ago. It is not where I grew up, but they are here, so it is another home for me. When I come, I am immediately soothed by the calmness of water and the love my parents have for each other and for me.
Listen
to the banter of the birds.
They chatter and flutter for the feeder Mom sets out and tends to with her mothering hands. This morning, a red-headed woodpecker squished his long body up and stuck his pecker beak into the mesh of the finch feeder. Mom says he comes every day. “No finch has ever come to that feeder.” The sparrow waited its turn while Mr. Woody wriggled his beak in and out for a tasty treat. I watched and listened to the other birds. I love this sound, symphonic, syncopated, soothing. Silence is never really silent. I could close my eyes to meditate here and listen for the joy in my heart. It’s there waiting to be heard, like the laughter of my mother as she talks to an old friend on the phone.
We are called to be listeners. We should not chatter like the birds wanting to be heard. We need to listen. Listen to the wisdom of fathers. Listen to the song of the wind. Whatever is there…listen.
Sometimes we get so deeply involved with our own thoughts, worries, concerns to listen to others. We practice our own counter-story rather than listen to our friend’s story. On this spiritual journey, I vow to be a better listener. Then I may become a better hearer. In the silence of my heart, God speaks.
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 