Found this poem, incomplete, in my notes. I had started with the seasons and their respective nouns, and I had toyed with the haiku structure but never quite reached satisfaction on the stanzas. Still can’t say that I have, but I’m ready to let this one make its way into the world.
Summer: loosening A relaxing of long days Into sun and light
Autumn: a shifting Into clarity, crispness, Deepening of hues
Winter: reckoning Hibernation of spirit, Our souls in retreat
Spring: Awakening speaks of cliché yet never fails to inspire awe
When I was ten, my grandma-from-California paid for me to have piano lessons and whenever she came in town she’d sit me down at the piano bench and say
“Well, let’s hear my investment,” and I’d play And most often she would nod and smile as I played because I sure did practice because she needed to get her money’s worth
And then in high school I learned how to play guitar on a four-dollar flea market cheapie and I’d struggle in my room for hours with guitar chord charts torturing the life out of Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Peter, Paul & Mary
until my mom brought me to the guitar store before I went to camp, saying it was “to get a better case for you,” except it was for a new guitar, a hundred-dollar one, with a real case with real fake furry lining and I thought oh boy I sure need to practice because she needed to get her money’s worth
And now that I’m a writer and I’ve poured myself into words and I’ve started to understand that even though I mostly shout into the void I still have things to say
so I’ve bought myself a real live domain and a real live plan which might change the way my soapbox looks or maybe it might not but it might be a way to put my money where my mouth is where my fingers are where my heart is and I deserve to get my money’s worth.
Want to write? i said Want a space where you’re read? i said Then come with me i said You can blog like me i said Here are some ideas i said You can take them or do other things i said
And then they came They blogged They took some ideas And they did other things like:
A journaling of a day, gone by too fast.
An ode to flowers
A poem demanding us to look, just look, at the wonder around us
A treatise on nostalgia
A heart-wrenching poetic series that tells of our inner conflict between our positive and negative selves
Stories about trampolines
Deep dives into all those weird questions that keep us awake at night
A poem that hangs heavy with the unfairness of life
A COVID parody on “12 Days of Christmas”
Soapboxes on humans and our treatment of animals
Stories that they start the first installment of, then the stories that they switch to because why not take a chance and share some writing that isn’t quite your favorite but you’re still working on and want to just put out into the world and see what happens
The latest installments on the Minecraft Saga, on Chokis and Fott’s new adventures, the New Life story, the tale of Test Subject 99,823, all somehow miraculously, magically written with correctly-punctuated dialogue and paragraphing and description and narration because miraculously, magically, they realize that other people are reading their work
This is good, i think They’re figuring things out, i think And they’re taking it, i think And running, i think And it’s hard to keep up, i think
And there are some problems That are good problems to have.
*Special thanks to S.T., whose gratitude for her time together with classmates together inspired today’s poem
Dear Standardized Testing,
Thank you.
Thank you for bringing me these loveys –
Thank you for bringing me these loveys – these loveys who miss one another
Thank you for bringing me these loveys – these loveys who miss one another, who have not been together
Thank you for bringing me these loveys – these loveys who miss one another, who have not been together in this space, in actual human form,
Thank you for bringing me these loveys – these loveys who miss one another, who have not been together in this space, in actual human form, in thirteen months
Thank you for bringing me these loveys – these loveys who miss one another, who have not been together in this space, in actual human form, in thirteen months so that once again they could play
Thank you for bringing me these loveys – these loveys who miss one another, who have not been together in this space, in actual human form, in thirteen months so that once again they could play and challenge one another to relay races
Thank you for bringing me these loveys – these loveys who miss one another, who have not been together in this space, in actual human form, in thirteen months so that once again they could play and challenge one another to relay races and remember how easy it is to remember
Thank you for bringing me these loveys – these loveys who miss one another, who have not been together in this space, in actual human form, in thirteen months so that once again they could play and challenge one another to relay races and remember how easy it is to remember how good it is, sometimes, to be a kid.
Relay races, stretch breaks, hang-out circles and general tomfoolery
Each Sunday, I’m working my way through my experiences with race. I’ll share stories and memories from throughout my life. I know I’ll encounter moments of growth that I wish I could relive. I’ll also have to think back on choices that I wish I could remake. Come join me each week.
All the world is a very narrow bridge*
between the world as I know it and the one too many others live
between power of identity and the insistent tug of justice
between guilt for sins of fathers and mothers and the compelling urge to act, to do
between apologies for who I am, what I represent and the abiding sense of right and wrong
between my moral compass and true north, shifting beneath my feet
between the self I am and the one this world needs me to be
Today, I had the privilege of working again with other leaders from my Just Schools Cohort. Together, we’re working across districts to advance equity and justice in schools. This team of professionals…they’re amazing. And even on days where I feel discouraged about my own work, and my own progress, they are there to remind me that building a more just society is HARD. That we have a LOT of work to do. But that we can – and MUST – do it together. They inspire me.
It brings to mind a line from Pirkei Avot, a collection of Jewish teachings. Rabbi Tarfon said: “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.” This Golden Shovel poem is my tribute to the incredible efforts of my colleagues.
Cathedral Rocks by Albert Bierstadt
When you stand at the base of a mountain, you can’t ever see the top. Your feet are just plunking down one after the other, not knowing when-how-if they’ll arrive. They just know they’re obligated by faith to get you to a place where the work is complete and whole and holy. The temptation to be solitary in your work is great, but you know this journey is neither easy nor short. So you are going to need others with you, others who know the only way to be free is to be strong, be strong, that our strength never allows us to desist from the lifedream of reaching that mountain top, or from the struggle of climbing it.
The feeling of having a joke that is absolutely hysterical but having to one to tell it to well that’s rough.
I mean, I know what I’m saying is WILDLY inappropriate. Maybe even dark. It’s also really freakin’ FUNNY.
And I can’t even laugh as loud as I would if I heard that joke myself because who laughs out loud at a time like this anyway, I mean board meetings and Yom Kippur services and brother’s funerals are all NOT laughing matters and how dare I laugh right now but I can’t escape the humor of some things so I swallow it down and half hope my face conceals the laughter below and half hope that someone will ask me why I’m almost smiling and half hope they’re a person who’d get it if I told them.
But just know. if you see an certain expression on my face, you don’t actually want to know what I’m thinking. but if you’re the sort who would, you asked for it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
When you get down to it, We really should like Cockroaches More than we do. They are evolution’s rock stars, Shining beacons of Persistence and carrying on And all that jazz.
I should offer nothing but respect But The very thought of them scuttling (I can’t picture them doing anything but scuttling) On floors Over counters In My PANTRY Is enough to send me Past the heebies Into the full-on jeebies
And I know this says something about me And my lack of humanity, that It is a metaphor for Tolerance and compassion
And Call me a monster If you will But There is satisfaction In a well-timed Crack and Squish.
Today, I took the poem I wrote yesterday, printed up a copy, and pasted it up on the wall right next to the chocolate stash that was my inspiration. I had FUN with it. So…tomorrow, and maybe the next day (or the next), I’m going to put up poems in random spots for my colleagues to read. Squee! I’m pretty excited about this one.
Tomorrow’s project?
Need a haiku? Take a haiku. Like with those little bitty tags that you see at coffee shops and supermarkets and on telephone poles?
YEAH. Now I just have to write some. Here goes.
school during covid is a little bit just like swimming through jell-o
hand sanitizer seventeen times every day pass the lotion please
even though we can’t hug them as before, we can still carry them home
the sun’s finally here so we can eat outside just pray for no bees
the weeks of winter are so much slower than spring: the countdown begins
you say what you will of tech wonders or marvels I’m so over Zoom.
there is no tired like teacher tired, on a Friday in April
those darn red badges at the corners of Seesaw haunt me in my dreams
I brought my school bag home for efficiency’s sake what a nice doorstop
the teacher’s lounge treats have truly suffered this year how I miss cupcakes
if I have to tell you again to stay six feet I think I might burst
I’m drawing boundaries not working a bit at home but first, this email
I found a poem carried it along with me- sometimes we need that
