Month of Poetry, Day 3

Ice Breakers

I glance out the side window of my old blue Volvo
To see my three boys' bright winter hats and coats--
blue, black, orange, yellow, green--
illuminating the opalescent morning light

They have trekked across the matted brown grass of the field
And, sticks in hand, surround a puddle of  frozen  snowmelt
Like pirates around a chest of treasure

This is the whole of their world--
A field, a puddle, breath clouds joining morning mist,
New ice shattering under the blows of their sticks

I turn onto the road and pass the big yellow bus
Steaming out of the clouds to take them away.

Month of Poetry, Day 2

Sounds of Spring

drip drip drip
tsee--tsee-tsee-tsee
chiva-chiva-chiva
caw caw caw
pechickoree pechickoree
drip-drop drip-drop
chickadee-dee-dee
cheer cheer cheer
tsee-tsia-tsee-tsee-tsee
ronk ronk
fee-beee
fee-beee
drip-drip-drip
drip-drop drip-drop
pat pat patter pat drip drop drip

(OK, this is a total cop-out, but a poem a day is HARD and my brain is not really functioning today).

Month of Poetry, Day 1: Snow Poems

April is National Poetry Month and I've taken of the challenge of writing (and posting here) a poem a day.  There's no requirement that they have to be good poems, so sorry to make you suffer through the duds, but posting here gives me some motivation and accountability.

Today the boys and I had a snow day, so we had a little snow poem writing session.  M agreed, as long as they wouldn't be "those poems that don't rhyme or have a certain number of syllables or anything."  Yoiks, I never knew he was such a traditionalist.  Better not let him see any of my poems!

I had thought I'd lead them in a guided poetry-writing activity from a book, but M had an idea and jumped right in, while E and Z are just a little too young to get it.

M's Poem:

The Snowshoe Hare

Fast through the snow runs the snowshoe hare
It runs to a cave, for it lives there
Best are its feet for running through snow
It gets there fast, wherever it might go
The bobcat races it to its nest,
A place of warm and sleep and rest
It enters its home with a sigh,
Especially sore it its left thigh
The rabbit sleeps safely in its home
And that is the end of this nature poem



Z's poem:

The snowy owl flies through the trees
'Cause it's really pleased
It flies at night with its flight
It flies at night on wings of white
The snowshoe hare
Running away from a bear


E's poem:

The owl eats what it caught
The owl threw upt pellets
Some animal ate the pellets
The end


My poem:

April Fools

The snow comes
Right on time
But no one listens to me
So the grocery lines
Snake, blinking surprised
On the last day of March
Expectations of daffodils
Buried under mounds
Of batteries and bottled water
My bananas, meanwhile,
Rock smugly in the cart,
As if to say, "April Fools!"


And for a bonus, here's an actual snow poem that I wrote a few years ago:

Snowflakes flutter
To the ground and
Listen for the hum
Of their brothers
And, blinking
Into the night
Imagine themselves
Into a mountain


Are you feeling poetic this month?  Leave a link in the comments to your April poem(s).

The Barage

Bedroom Overhaul: Done!

I set out this month to bring order to the chaos that was my bedroom (plus office plus sewing room).  And I did it!

I started by sorting out the closet and all of my drawers, and then I dealt with the things that emerged from the closet--books and other random things--and cleaned out my sewing and writing area.  The best part was organizing all of my sewing and knitting patterns, which had been scattered between my room and the basement, stuffed haphazardly into various binders and bins.  Now I have a nice file box sorted by category (Sew: Ornaments and Toys; Sew:  Garments; Sew:  Everything Else; etc.)

Then, I made new curtains!

Our old white gauze curtains had grown lank with time, and the thin whiteness of them meant they served no real purpose in keeping out either cold or light.  Plus at full length, they were kind of in the way of all the furniture.

The new ones are made with two different fabrics, both pale spring green with aqua blue floral silhouettes (the palm-tree-lookin' ones are actually black-eyed Susans).  When I went through my bins of bedding, I ran across an old worn-out set of light blue sheets that turned out perfect for the linings--using them saved me the trip to Waterville to buy muslin (and the money) plus it gave the slightly-more-yellowish-than-green background of the fabric a slightly more greenish hue so now they match the walls exactly.  And, the blue makes them that much darker, so that they block more light.  I'm quite proud of my "upcycling" efforts there!

On a whim, I tucked the old curtains under the mattress to make a dust ruffle.  I've never had a dust ruffle before, so I'm not sure if it actually serves a purpose (does it keep dust out from under the bed?).  C will probably get his feet tangled in it and rip it (it occurs to me also, as I look at the picture, that it lacks the essential element in a dust ruffle of ruffleiness...hmm...).

To finish it off, I did a major dusted and vacuumed all the neglected corners, washed the windows, aired the pillows and comforter, rotated the mattress, and dealt all the nagging tasks I'd been avoiding for a long time--re-gluing finials on curtain tie-backs, re-stringing glass balls that hang in the windows.  I took everything out that doesn't belong in there, which did involve a bit of cluttering up other spaces, but I plan to bulldoze my way through the house and get everything in its place...and everything else to Goodwill.  The room has become a nice, soothing sanctuary (of course it's the place that everyone wants to be, especially since I've been neglecting housework in the rest of the house in favor of working on this).  I plan to not take anything into it that doesn't belong, and keep up with the dusting and vacuuming weekly and make the bed daily.  I promise.

Next stop:  the bathrooms!  Stay tuned for even more of Andrea's Exciting Organizational Odyssey.

March Miscellany

Aside from that one freakishly warm day, it continues to feel wintery out there, though not as cold as that March day three years ago when it was seven degrees out (and if I hadn't blogged about it, I would never have remembered, but now it's seared in my brain--it gets as cold as seven in March).  Every coat is filthy.  Every pair of snowpants is wearing out at the knees.  Every boot is sopping wet.  Hats and mittens and gloves have gone missing--or into hiding under car seats, in the basement, in snowbanks.  Every short person in the house is under the impression that now that it's spring, he can wear t-shirts outside now (or, in two cases, shorts and crocs two sizes too small discovered in the hand-me-down bag).  I do believe spring fever is epidemic around here.

As for me, my usual March Malaise has been compounded severely by the horrifying political situation here in Maine.  Unfortunately, that won't go away with the turning of the calendar (I keep hoping I'll wake up and it will have all been a horrible, horrible dream, but so far that hasn't happened).  It's really starting to effect my emotional well-being and is not helping me out in the happy mommy department.

I've been reminiscing lately about those two days in September when I was really sick and stayed home lying on the couch, reading, napping and drinking tea all day.  I haven't yet resorted to licking doorknobs or walking around in the cold with wet hair, but some days, it's tempting...

Some things I've been doing in a feeble effort to cope (other than main-lining chocolate):

• I try to get to the pool to swim every morning.  I've been working on the Total Immersion program for about seven years, but have continually been drug out of the pool by life events of major (having twins; work) and minor (sinus infections; preschool runs) proportions.  For the first time I have the flexibility to go there every day.  It's the one half-hour of the day when I'm focusing completely in the moment; and I feel really good the whole time I'm in the water and for a short while afterward (about until the moment I walk into my building).   I totally love the TI program--which is based on, among other things, the philosophy of Kaizen, or continuous improvement.  I think I could become quite evangelical about it, and I may post more one day, but if you're wondering why a swim blog appears in my blog roll at the right, that's why.

• I've become a bit of an Etsy-a-holic.  It's where I go when I need a little mental/emotional escape from reality (which is a lot lately).  I'm beginning to amass quite a collection which I'll share with you once all the items arrive (if I can stop buying more!)  Now I know how internet gamblers feel--just one more!

• C and I watched the funniest movie Saturday night--Soul Kitchen.  I don't think I've laughed so much in a long time.

• We're going to go see David Sedaris in Portland next Saturday.

• For those of you who dug my paper doll post, I discovered this blog:  The Paper Collector, full of all kinds of incredible vintage paper doll goodness.  There's even a Paperdoll Convention.  Who knew?

• We're going to Philadelphia for April vacation (though not to the paper doll convention, which is in August in that same town).  I kept putting off trying to figure out reservations and such, and finally C just called a travel agent who took care of it all (train + hotel).  Whew.  Now I can just figure out what fun stuff we'll do there (perhaps weep at the foot of the Liberty Bell in mourning for the loss of hope and promise this country may have once had...), and find a cute travel bag (I really love this one, but I don't have four weeks to wait for it, and it's a little scarily expensive, though I would never have the patience to make one like it myself).

What are you doing to beat the the March Malaise (and if you live in one of our fascist sister-states, how are you coping?)

Nature Journaling, A Poetry Field Trip

I went on a Poetry Field trip Friday.

Although it was a sunny day, the wind blew wildly, so I donned a wool sweater, scarf, hat and fingerless mitts.

When I got outside, I found it was a warm wind, almost a hot wind.

Yet in the woods, the ground was still covered in snow, and I sank in to my boot-tops every few steps.

I found a clear, dry patch of ground at the base of Owl Tree and sat down to write a Weather Poem.

First, I wrote a list of verbs that I normally associate with people.

Then, I wrote a list of verbs I associate with animals.

Then I chose some of these verbs and wrote a poem about the wind.

I wanted to express the disorientation I was feeling, after having begun to believe that winter would never go away, but now finding the snow melting and the weather changing so suddenly, without warning.  Here's my final poem, in case you can't read it in the picture:

March Wind

So you think you can just sashay back,

Fondle the pine boughs in your warm embrace,

Bend them to your will,

Release the river from its icy prison,

Peel back the crisp, dirt-flecked snow

One molecule at a time,

Awaken tiny green tendrils with your hot breath?

Do you feel no remorse?  No shame?

Should you not beg forgiveness

For your long, cold absence?

This exercise is from A Crow Doesn't Need a Shadow:  A Guide to Writing Poetry from Nature by Lorraine Ferra and illustrated by Diane Boardman with wonderful pencil drawings that are exactly the kind of drawings I'd love to be able to draw in my nature journal.

It's a book that's kind of intended for teaching poetry to kids (the examples were written by young poets ranging in age from around seven to 12 or so), but I find it enormously useful (I would say I'm at about a 12-year-old level of poetry writing, except that kids have an innocence and sense of wonder and openness to the world that I've long ago ceded to cynicism).

Invitation:  Take yourself on a Poetry Field Trip.  Try this exercise, or follow any other poetic thread that strikes your fancy.  Write the poem in your nature journal.  Post it on your blog and link to it in the comments, or post your poem in the comments.

Previous Nature Journaling posts:  Nature Journaling, Birds at the Feeder, Nature Journaling, An Invitation.  See also Nature Journaling as Meditation for more on starting a nature journal.