Early morning is prime fishing time for egrets and herons on the bayou. It is rare that I can get a photo. I have to walk lightly and hope Albert doesn’t bark. This was a lucky shot.
I will be presenting at NCTE this week. In the roundtable presentation with Ethical ELA (3:30 on Friday, Rm. 108, 110), I will be discussing creating Zeno zines. A Zeno poem is one in which the syllable count is 8, 4, 2, 1, 4, 2, 1, 4, 2, 1. The challenge is each one syllable line rhymes.
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Morning is bayou fishing time flashy bright white egret shines reminding me how love dines on memory, sacred signs. (Margaret Simon, draft)
My students and I are reading Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse. In the book, there is a poem “On the Road with Arley” that begins with line “Here’s the way I figure it, my place in the world is at the piano.” It’s been fun to find music of the time period and write alongside it. My students worked hard to create poems using this beginning line. I asked them to use imagery to create a tone. I wrote a model poem about my place in the world.
In a Canoe
Here’s the way I figure it, my place in the world is on the bayou lazing about in a canoe with you.
I’m just a mamere wanting the best time to be outside watching for eagles slipping through slow current listening for Mr. Owl to cook-cook-for-you!
My place is in open toes among cypress knees sniffing catfish air hearing cicadas buzz when the sun goes down.
Here’s the way I figure it, my place in the world is in a canoe with you.
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I love it when I read something someone else writes and begin to contemplate the same thing in my own life. Do we walk parallel lines? Kim Douillard lives on the west coast. I live on the southern Gulf coast. She wrote, “The experience of taking the same photo over and over echoes what it means to be a teacher. Each day is filled with sameness.”
March 13, 2024
When I read her blog post, I was sitting on my back deck on the same day we shut down schools 4 years ago, listening to the same birdsong, the same train whistle, and watching the same sun slowly disappear. I took a picture of the same view I had then and still have today, but I am different. We all are. We drew a line in the sand of before and after. Who would have predicted that day (March 13, 2020) the trials we would experience? The illness that would take so many lives and send us into a tailspin of doubt and despair.
But in many ways, I remember that time fondly. My oldest daughter called me while I was sitting on the deck avoiding people to tell me she was pregnant. She didn’t know then if the baby would survive. It was the early scary days of new pregnancy. And now we have an adorable, smart, and hilarious 3 year old.
I spent that spring writing poetry, making what I could out of the strangeness of the world. Today I looked back into my media file and found two other pictures of this place in my world. Same but different.
Our students still grapple with the change of things. The educational system hasn’t figured out how to move forward. Have any of us?
Buddhist wisdom says that change is the only constant. My view comforts me. To see this old cypress sprout its bright green needles year by year holds hope. Nature shows us that things can change and be alive and well again. We can’t always see the movement, but it’s there, letting us know that God is here.
March 22, 2022
March 24, 2020
“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” –Buddha
Thoughts climb out on a branch spilling a seed droplet Budding
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Wikimedia Commons Black-bellied whistling duck
If you have read my blog through the years, you may already know that we raise wood ducks. Actually, we have a wood duck house that has a Ring doorbell camera inside. In February and March of this year we watched a mother wood duck dutifully attend to a dozen eggs and successfully hatch 8 of them. We missed actually witnessing Jump Day because it was a school day. I even missed watching the little ducklings climbing out on my phone video because I was out at recess.
In the past we have had two clutches, one in March and another in May or June. But this year the duck house remained empty for weeks after the first mother left with her eight little ducklings. We waited.
Once again we have a tenant duck, but not a wood duck. It’s a Mexican squealer or black-bellied whistling duck. At first we were disappointed, but as the weeks have gone back, this weird orange-billed duck has won over our hearts. We’ve had to learn about this breed.
The first thing we noticed in the description were the not-so-favorable adjectives, words like “boisterous” and “gaudy”.
Fun Facts about Black-Bellied Whistling Ducks
Known as tree ducks because they hang out in trees.
“Sexual dimorphism”: both male and female look alike.
They form lifelong pair bonds. Both male and female tend to the hatchlings.
There are plenty of them, low-conservation concern.
Egg incubation is 25-30 days. I marked that the first night of sitting was on May 5th, so we should see hatching in the next week or so. The babies are colored like bumblebees, yellow and black feathering. Whether wood ducks or whistlers, our nest box continues to entertain us.
Inside the nest box, the whistling duck is taller than a wood duck and can look out the window.
Margaret Simon lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana. She teaches gifted elementary students, writes poetry and children's books. Welcome to a space of peace, poetry, and personal reflection. Walk in kindness.
Reflections on the Teche 