2010 Poetry Parade: Day 6

Love this poem! Makes me nostalgic for many things--from train rides to good manners to spring break with no responsibilties!

The Dining Car of the Southern Crescent
by
John Campbell

The Southern Crescent
snakes its way through
the rolling fog shrouded
piedmont landscape;
a young man on spring break,
returning home from
college, crosses the creaky
passageway that leads from
Pullmans to the dining car.

Breakfast smells give rise to
an ambitious order of fresh coffee,
country ham with red eye gravy,
grits, scrambled eggs and
biscuits with blackberry jam.

The waiter, agile and accomplished,
dressed in a white starched apron,
steadies himself against the swaying
motion of the train; with serving tray
in hand and balanced, he places the
piping hot breakfast on a table decked
with a linen table cloth, pewter
creamers, thick silverware, coffee
cups and saucers and plates etched with
a crescent moon insignia; a small
bundle of daffodils sit in a crystal
vase near the window.

The young man with the vittles before him,
relishes a feeling of adult composure
and delight. “How could life be this good?”
-A breakfast fit for a king, waiters
eager to please, railway views of
rural Carolina: tenant shanties,
grazing black angus, abandoned junkyards,
brownstone depots and sleepy towns.

He, still unfamiliar with the niceties
of the wealthy elite, or even the
acquired dignities of his college
professors, avows, while pouring
coffee from a silver carafe into
a Syracuse China cup, that the
dining car of the Southern Crescent
is a place of utmost refinement.

From January Snow and Other Poems (Williams & Company, 2008)
Used with the author’s permission.

Do You See What I See?

Probably not. Because my life experiences are probably quite different from what yours have been. One of the joys of sharing experiences with friends is being able to extract extra meaning from the moment through their "filters," as well as our own.

2010 Poetry Parade - Day 5

Of Feathers, Of Flight
by
Adele Kenny


“…if I look up into the heavens I think that it will all come right …
and that peace and tranquility will return again.”
– Anne Frank

That spring, a baby jay fell from its nest, and
we took it to Mrs. Levine, who told us the
mother would know our hands and never take
it back. Spring that year was a cardboard box,

a bird cradled in cotton, cries for eyedropper
food – the wide mouth that became a beak,
feather-stalks stretched into wings. We knew,
of course, that we couldn’t keep it. (Later, we

would mark the spot with stones and twigs –
where the bird fell, where we let it go – and
sometimes, stopped in the middle of play,
would point and say, there, right there.)

The day we freed it, it beat, a heart-clock
(wound and sprung in Ruth Levine’s old hand)
that, finally, finding the sky, flew higher than
all the briars strung like metal barbs above the

backyard fence – a speck of updraft ash and
gone. Heaven, fuller then for one small bird,
spread its blue wing over us and the tree and
Mrs. Levine who, breathing deeply, raised

her numbered arm to the light and moved
her thumb over each fingertip as if she could
feel to the ends of her skin the miracle edge
of freedom, of feathers, of flight.

This poem won the 2007 Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Award.
Previously published in the Merton Seasonal (Summer 2007).
Used here with the author’s permission.

A morning like no other

2010 Poetry Parade: Day 4

Morning Red
by
Rossiter Raymond


Morning red, morning red,
Now the shadows all are fled;
Now the Sabbath’s cloudless glory,
Tells anew the wondrous story,
Christ is risen from the dead.

All around, all around,
Solemn silence reigned profound;
When, with blaze and sudden thunder,
Angels burst the tomb asunder,
And the Savior was unbound.

Forth He came! Forth He came!
Robed in white, celestial flame!
Mary, at the empty prison,
Knew not her Redeemer risen
Till He called her by her name.

Morning red! Morning red!
Christ is risen from the dead!
Still He walketh in the garden,
Speaking words of love and pardon.
Though the crown is on His head.

This poem is in the public domain.

(For more details, go to www.YourDailyPoem.com)

You're Doing Just Fine: God Said So!

Day 3 of Wordwoman's Springtime Parade of Poetry

This is a great example of a poem that can be interpreted and appreciated on several different levels; I think it would be a terrific discussion starter for a youth group or Sunday School class.

Jesus Told Me I’m Just Fine
by
Charles Ries

I sat in the rear pew of The Parroquia, the grand church off
San Miguel Allende’s city center called the Jardin. It was early
on Holy Thursday morning and the church was empty except
for the volunteers who were mopping the floor and dusting off
Jesus, who will be carried through the streets later that day on
the backs of twelve believers.
I was there to think, having argued with my brother the night
before over who loved our mother more. This is always a
delicate debate and unwinnable, unless complete and absolute
fidelity is declared to her memory. My love for her is deep,
but not so complete. My brother worries that the memoir I
am writing will not do justice to her memory. I tell him “It’s
a fictionalized memoir. All memoirs live more in the author’s
mind than reality,” but he was very drunk and would not listen.
The youngest is often such a gate-keeper.
So there I sat, eyes closed, listening for some message from
God. I often pray in this way, having a “My Own Personal
Jesus” moment in which the supplicant (that’s me), acts as if He
(God) is listening, pausing to consider my question, and then
stating, loudly and infallibly, (in my mind) the correct answer.
I’m quite certain that many dictators, demigods, and serial killers
have used this same conversational technique with a wide and
surprising host of replies, but I’m a simple man (today) and keep
my questions basic. “How am I doing, Jesus?” I think in my mind.
“Why, you’re doing just fine.” I hear His reply in a lexicon that is
surprisingly like my own (he’s a very personal God).
I leave the church grateful to God for taking time out of His busy
schedule to speak to me, and continue my work of fictionalizing my past.

© by Charles P. Ries
Used with the author’s permission.

The Color of Day is Green!

Winter drab, begone! 'Tis time for tulip pink, hyacinth yellow, and new leaf green!

My daughter laughed
by
Katrin Talbot

My daughter laughed
and said
she could only hear
her boots
but couldn’t you hear
it too?
The prairie swelling,
the dark and trembling crescendo in
the thawing earth
as the bilateral state
begins to unfurl
towards
away
and I begin
to remember
the shock value

of

green

© by Katrin Talbot.
Used with the author's permission.

It's National Poetry Month!

I know April 1st means April Fool's Day to many...or two weeks till taxes are due...or perhaps the advent of spring cleaning. But for me, April 1st means the beginning of National Poetry Month. I've celebrated for the past eight years by sending out a poem a day to anyone who wanted one. But last year's "Poetry Parade" gave birth to a daily poetry venture--a website called http://www.yourdailypoem.com/. A new poem is posted on the website each day, and subscribers enjoy a bit of private commentary which never appears on the site. I've been delighted and astounded at the support the site has found. Now, in this ninth year of my Springtime Parade of Poems, I've decided to post the selections here on my blog as well to allow for some discussion. I always get a ton of comments on the parade selections (ranging from "That's the dumbest poem I ever read!" to "I want this on my tombstone!") and some have suggested it would be fun if everyone got to see those comments and respond with their own, so we'll see how it goes.

I'm not an early riser, so don't expect to find anything to comment on before 9 AM!

Here's the kick-off for the parade this year--a very funny, very clever piece from Wisconsin poet Bruce Dethlefsen:

Mineral Expectations by Bruce Dethlefsen

limestone awfully lonesome since my father’s gone and miss our little talcs and conversations how I marbled at the strength of this good man a grocer who would sandstone much all day that he developed varicosities in both his legs and never once complained even though I took his love for granite I can still recoal his exact words and sediments it slate for him he’d say too late but you shale mica difference in this world he’d point at me and shake his finger of quartz he understood and wished for me not just the same old schist but a future that pyrites would be mined and mined alone (Something Near the Dance Floor, Marsh River Editions, 2003) Used with the author's permission. To see the full posting, go here. Comments, anyone?

I Teach, Therefore I Inspire

Don't you wish that were the motto of every instructor we encounter during the course of our and our children's lives? It's not, of course; I can name a lot more boring and mediocre teachers than I can inspiring ones in the nearly fifty years I've spent in my own and my sons' classrooms. Isn't that sad? On the other hand, the good ones are so life-changing that they almost make the dull teachers worth enduring.

This week on my Your Daily Poem website, I featured a poem by Edwin Romond, who taught English in Wisconsin and New Jersey for 32 years before retiring. The first time I read it, when Edwin submitted it to YDP for consideration along with several others, I cried. I cried because the impact and sweetness of his memory are so profound. I cried because this poem brought to mind my own life-changing moments in school--passing blips of activity or conversation, seemingly insignificant at the time, that nonetheless buried themselves in my brain and still resonate half a century later. I cried because I fear today's students are missing out on these moments because teachers are so burdened with covering what's on THE TEST (pick one; they seem to be endless) that they can't spare an unscripted, serendipitous hour to gush over the gossamer art of butterfly wings or discuss why a rainy day makes us feel so melancholy. They certainly wouldn't derail the day's syllabus to sing beautiful ethnic ballads; most schools don't even have music class anymore and if they're lucky enough to still have a music teacher, there's probably some law in place by now that says you can't sing ethnic songs because it might offend somebody. . .or if you sing one ethnic ballad, you have to sing them all. (But then, chances are, today's students don't know any ethnic ballads anyway because their music education is coming from iPods and "American Idol," but I think that's a blog for another day.)

In any case, I wanted to share Edwin's wonderful poem with you (see link below). And I want to encourage you to appreciate those teachers in your life who give inspiration along with information; if you have any pull with legislators, please remind them that the classroom should be a place for learning, not memorization, and certainly not simply for prepping to pass a test. Being well educated encompasses soooooo much more than being able to diagram a sentence, dissect an earthworm, or determine a square root. It's being able to identify and savor special moments in life, connect with and care for our fellow man, spawn new ideas and create works of art born of nothing more than ingenuity.

Here's a suggestion: next time you need to give a teacher a gift (and June is just around the corner), instead of the ubiquitous Starbucks gift card, give Edwin Romond's wonderful book, Dream Teaching. Poetry book not your style? Here are some other wonderful books that recognize and celebrate extraordinary teachers:

• Teacher Man, by Frank McCourt
• The Thread that Runs So True: A Mountain School Teacher Tells His Story, by Jesse Stuart
• The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life, by Parker Palmer
• Mentors, Masters, and Mrs. McGregor, by Jane Bluestein
• Extraordinary Teachers, by Fred Stephenson, Jr.

It's important that we reward outstanding teachers--by buying their books, praising them to their superiors, giving them thoughtful gifts, thanking them--frequently--and recalling their magic long after their tenure has ended. And remember: it's never to late to tell a teacher how he or she made a difference in your life.

Here's a review of Edwin's book by George Mason University instructor Erica Jacobs, and here is Edwin's beautiful poem, "Everything About Egypt." (If you cry when you read it, it's okay; you're one of many!)

Want to share a life-changing classroom moment of your own? I'd love to hear about it here!