Acadia wrote a poem.

the intergalact[?] poem

it’s not a lot to me;
there’s no pictures in this one.
on the back there is,
but not today.
the pictures we will write in,
in 15 years;
in 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 years.
the days turned into many and many and many more years till it was Egypt time.

“I’m making a poem,” Acadia announced. Several times. Then she “wrote” this poem on the back of a drawing she’d done. (She makes words by doing the wavy lines kids call writing.) After she “read” it to me, she said, “Isn’t this one cool? It has Egypt in it.” She loves talking about Egypt and Pharaoh, for some reason. I am not sure what it is about it that appeals to her so much. I mean, it’s fascinating stuff, but she’s 4.

Babies Make Us Love Them.

How do you feel when you’ve heard of a set of parents whose baby has died?  I you’re like me, you get an achy, groaning kind of feeling in your chest for all the lost hopes and imaginings of what life with that child would have been like.  Should have been like, we think.

A prominent family in the reformed evangelical world (if that’s the proper terminology) has had such a loss this week.  Her name was Felicity Margaret Piper.  A friend has written a poem about her brief life and our reactions to it.  I think you should read it.

This part especially echoes my own feelings when I think of Levi and of Jonas, two little boys who left us in a similar way.

You did not come as we presumed—
a place upstairs at home was groomed.
Yet other plans our Sovereign had
and took you from the womb.

Life is never ill-conceived.
He willed through you to make us grieved;
and though our hearts now linger sad,
we know whom we’ve believed.

My heart goes out to the Piper family.

I Liked This Poem…

…the first time I read it.  I still like it.  Here it is, reprinted without permission, for your reading pleasure.  You Enter a Poem, by Robin Hirsch.

YOU ENTER A POEM . . .

You enter a poem
Just like you enter a room.
You open the door
And what do you see?
A sink, for example,
A bathtub, a toilet
(Does a toilet belong in a poem?)
And you say to yourself, “Aha!
It’s a bathroom.”

The next time you enter
You know it’s a bathroom
And you notice
The towels on the rack
And their color,
The mirror, the tiles, the sofa
(What? There’s a sofa? In the bathroom?)
And you say: “Aha!
It’s that kind of a bathroom.”

The third time you enter
You realize
One of the towels is frayed
There are streaks on the mirror
And the person who did the grouting
Messed up in that corner.
You open the drawers and the cabinets.
You empty them,
You take an inventory:
Toothbrushes, toothpaste, cotton balls, cleanser,
Toilet paper
(Does toilet paper belong in a poem?)
Not to mention
The child-proof bottles of pills–
Which you know of course how to open–
And you say to yourself: “Aha!
It’s that kind of a
This is how you enter a
I’m beginning to know this
Poem.”

Love Poems

One of the blogs I read regularly, Poetry for Children, brings our attention to this poem. I fell for it immediately.

OWL PELLETS
By Ralph Fletcher

A month ago
in biology lab
you sat close to me
knee touching mine
your sweet smell
almost drowning out
the formaldehyde stink
which crinkled up
your nose
while i dissected a fetal pig.

Now I take apart
this owl pellet
small bag that holds
skin and hair and bones
little skeletons
what the owl ate
but couldn’t digest
and coughed back up

You sit with Jon Fox
ignore me completely
laugh at his dumb jokes
let your head fall onto
his bony shoulder
while i attempt
to piece together
with trembling hands
the tiny bones
of a baby snake

Certain things
are just about
impossible
to swallow.

From I Am Wings: Poems about Love (pp. 34-35)

The kids and I have been enjoying a newly-found a…

The kids and I have been enjoying a newly-found activity: messing around on The Official Robert Munsch Website. Gannon and I especially enjoy listening to him tell stories, which he does because (I think) he utterly loves it. And that is what makes a wonderful storyteller. That, and lots of practice. If you write him a letter, who knows? He might just show up at your library storytime or your elementary school classroom.

Gannon loved BOO!, PIGS, and I Have To Go!. He said, “They laughed my giggles out.” We also listened to The Boy In The Drawer, and that one kind of freaked him out.

Acadia’s First Poem!

You know how some people are the most creative when they’re in a trial, like depression, sickness, or fatigue? Well, Acadia’s got a GI virus and has composed her first poem. (It’s not about her illness, thankfully.) She and I were sitting on the recliner, relaxing before bedtime and hoping the vomiting was over (sorry; gross but true). Gazing at her PJs, she recited these words and I typed it out. Okay, it doesn’t rhyme, but since when is rhyming a requisite for poetry?

Pajamas

Big flower, small flower,
Blue and pink.
Butterfly, another flower,
Cozy in bed.

Sovereign Grace

That’s the Point
by Charlie Peacock, 1996

this is what it’s like to be loved
this is what it’s like to be forgiven
this is what it feels like to be alive
to be living in a way that you don’t have to fear
being zapped by God
because you don’t measure up
after all
that’s the point
that’s the point

it’s a point that’s missed by
more than a few
young and old, tried and true
sin is a cancer,
not just a thing you do from time to time
like slipping or tripping
or losing your keys
it’s in you mister
sister it’s in me

it’s a point that’s missed by more than a few
I confess to it; how about you?
sin is a sickness, not just a thing we do
from time to time
like stumbling or fumbling or
having to sneeze
it’s in you mister
sister it’s in me

that’s the point.

Words

At the Library
by Nikki Grimes

I flip the pages of a book and slip inside,
Where crystal seas await and pirates hide.
I find a paradise where birds can talk,
Where children fly and trees prefer to walk.
Sometimes I end up on a city street.
I recognize the brownskin girl I meet.
She’s skinny, but she’s strong, and brave, and wise.
I smile because I see me in her eyes.

from IT’S RAINING LAUGHTER. New York: Dial, 1997.