Before
by Avis Harley
The butterfly was there
before any human art was made.
Before cathedrals rose in prayer,
the butterfly was there.
It's been such an amazing experience to have monarch caterpillars, chrysalises and butterflies in our classroom for the past two weeks! They were given to us by one of our building's paraprofessionals, whose mother collected the caterpillars and hung the chrysalises in nifty solo cup viewers. The last of the caterpillars started to make its J today and I overheard one of my students say, "I could just sit here and watch all day!" Another student caught the caterpillar's last voracious eating on video on one of the iPads yesterday. We haven't stopped marveling at the beauty of the chrysalises. Why the gold dots? There seems to be no scientific explanation. Nature just goes out of its way to be beautiful!
If I'm understanding what I have read
here, our butterflies might be fourth generation monarchs, the ones who will migrate to Mexico to hibernate for the winter before flying back to start the cycle all over again. This is as much of a miracle as the metamorphosis and the gold dots. What an amazing world this is!
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| Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here. |
30. People
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| Carol Wilcox at the Denver Botanic Gardens |
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| Kevin Hodgson |
Our Wonderful WorldWhen
and
where
and
how
and
what
are absolute and true.
But none of it would matter much
without the likes of you.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014
WHEW! We made it! A month of wandering the world, wondering about wonders, and writing poetry.
Awards for collaboration, commitment, camaraderie and creativity go to Carol Wilcox and Kevin Hodgson. We stayed together through thick and thin, through narrative and haiku, through rhyme and free verse. Thank you, thank you, thank you for coming on this journey with me!
There are wonders to be found everywhere we look in our world. The ordinary variety can be found close to home. Scattered throughout the world are ancient, modern, engineering, and natural wonders amazing enough to make "The Lists."
But none of the wonders experienced on their own are nearly as wonderful as they are when you can ooh and ahh with a fellow wonderer. It's this realization I tried to capture in my Hallmarkian poem today.
Thank you Carol and Kevin for writing with me EVERY single day (and also to Carol V., Catherine, Collette, Margaret, and Jone for joining in occasionally).
Kevin has a sound poem, "
The Wonder of People," with which to end our month.
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| Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here. |
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| Wikimedia Commons |
29. Imagination
Because the whole time
you are gluing paper to sticks,
it is neither paper nor sticks.
It is wings and sky,
soaring and flight.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014
Here's to the impulse behind every single one of the wonders this month -- to the human imagination -- the ability to see beyond!
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| Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here. |
28. Chocolate Cake
Abecedarian Cake LoveA
birthday
cake --
decadent,
elegant,
frosting
gobbed
high --
I
justify
knifing
loose
my
notch --
objectify
perfection,
qualify
restraint,
savor
tastes
until...
voicing
with
exuberance:
YUMMY!
amaZing!
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014
In a couple of weeks, I'll be baking a carrot cake for my friend Lisa's birthday. Change is good, and it's loads of fun to spell out her name in little cream-cheese-frosting carrots! Stay tuned for pictures!
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| Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here. |
27. Sunrise
It's a
daily wonder
most people sleep right through.
I've sung sun's praises since childhood.
Still do.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014
I'm a morning person. I love sunrise. We're good friends. I actually love the darkness right before sunrise almost as much as the sunrise itself. Anticipation, expectation...then...renewal.
And what I said about singing sun's praises? I meant that literally. I remember, at about 5 years old, running out into the middle of the back yard and belting out "Heavenly Sunshine" (a Bible School song) first thing on summer mornings. I remember standing at the kitchen sink with mom, singing "You Are My Sunshine." I remember, as a high schooler, playing my guitar and leading the Easter Sunrise Service congregation in "Morning Has Broken."
I grew up in a place where the most distinctive feature of the landscape is the horizon. Drive five minutes out of town in any direction and you can see all 360° of it. The upshot of this is that I grew up watching the sky, the sun, the clouds. Some people feel an emotional pull to mountains, some to ocean. But I feel most myself when I'm in that spacious open land with nothing around me and the bright blue bowl of the sky above me.
We're winding down the Our Wonderful World project and Poetry Month 2014. I'm glad I saved some personal wonders for these last four days. The big wide amazing world is one thing, but our small particular dear-to-us worlds are even more precious. Because they are ours.
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| Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here. |
The Birdhouse in the Sycamore Tree
The summer between 5th and 6th grade,
I fell out of the sycamore tree
that stood in the alley
outside the back garden fence.
There was a birdhouse in the sycamore.
I wanted to get it down.
I had climbed up to check it out
and the rope that tied it was weathered into a
rock solid knot.
I got the silver bottle opener –
the one with the shiny sharp triangle
for poking and prying –
out of the kitchen gadget drawer.
I climbed the fence and then into the sycamore
with the bottle opener
clenched between my teeth.
I remember the surprise I felt
when the branch broke,
but I don’t remember falling
or hitting the fence on the way down.
I came to with the bottle opener
still between my
(unbroken)
teeth.
My right arm was a different matter.
I began 6th grade,
already awkward and buck-toothed
with a full cast on my right arm.
I’m right handed.
And on the first day of school,
Mrs. Bonner,
cold as the polar ice caps,
made me pass out the Scholastic book orders.
I struggled with those tissue-paper fliers,
stared at and and snickered at
but stubbornly refusing to ask for help.
I can’t remember if I ever got the bird house
out of the tree,
but I’ll never forget how Mrs. Bonner
treated me.
I couldn't bear to write about human destruction of the polar ice caps.
Kevin came through. He wrote a passionate ode to the ice caps that includes a fierce warning to humankind. Powerful.
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| Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here. |
25.
Victoria FallsTHE SMOKE THAT THUNDERS
Wide river, sauntering fluidly,
serene, unaware of the fault ahead,
stumbles,
falls,
churns
angrily,
thundering
through
narrow
canyons.
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| Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here. |
24.
The Amazon Rain ForestLeaf Cutter AntsSYMBIOSIS
Ant agriculturalists
harvest leaf bits,
feeding them to fungus,
growing their food source.
But there's more.
The fungus needs the ants.
Mold threatens the fungus,
so worker ants wear
a coat of bacteria --
living antibiotics that protect their food.
But there's more.
The rainforest needs the ants
who prune vegetation
which stimulates growth;
who break down leaves
which renews the soil.
But there's more.
The earth needs the rainforest.
The green,
living,
breathing
jewel of biodiversity
which holds keys to the balance
of life on earth.
Keys that may be lost
before we even know how much we need them.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014
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| Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here. |
23.
The AuroraAURORA
Luminous curtains veil a backdrop of stars.
Swirling green serpents of light,
wingbeats of unseen mythical beings,
dancing spirits take the stage.
Swirling green serpents of light
demystified and explained by science, but
dancing spirits take the stage
in my imagination.
Demystified and explained by science, but
evidence of mystery and magic
in my imagination.
Luminous curtains veil a backdrop of stars.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014
I wanted to try a pantoum today. It seemed the perfect twisting swirling form for The Aurora Borealis. I'm not sure this quite captured the feeling I wanted, but there are only so many hours in a day and that stack of papers I've been carrying around for...um...too long...needs to be graded!
My students are writing with me again this week. Hopefully by week's end I'll have some of their poems to share.
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| Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here. |
21.
The Great Barrier ReefDo you care
If the
Vitality of the
Earth is
Reduced by
Slow degradation of ecosystems?
It should
Tear at
Your soul,
Making you feel the loss
As if a part of you were
Taken,
Tossed,
Erased,
Removed,
Stolen.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014
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Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here. |
20.
The Grand CanyonFor the Grand Canyon (and Franki)
You're amazing.
I like to watch people's faces
when they first experience you.
There's no mistaking the power of your energy.
You're inspiring.
We see what you've accomplished,
the vigor and potential in all you do,
and we know we could do more and be more.
You're incredible:
the reach of your influence;
your stamina, your spirit, your passion;
the bubbly joy at your core.
You're a wonder.
You make the world a better place.
You are a force for good.
We are lucky to have you in our world.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014
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Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here. |
Dominating the North Platform of Chichen Itza is the Temple of Kukulkan (a Maya feathered serpent deity similar to the Aztec Quetzalcoatl)...On the Spring and Autumn equinoxes, in the late afternoon, the northwest corner of the pyramid casts a series of triangular shadows against the western balustrade on the north side that evokes the appearance of a serpent wriggling down the staircase, which some scholars have suggested is a representation of the feathered-serpent god Kukulkan. --Wikipedia
What To Do If You Are a Feathered Serpent Deity
Wear plumage to mitigate your fangs
to imply flight
suggest softness
Wear scales to camouflage your tenderness
to announce might
define dominance
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014
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Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here. |
HOW?No wheel for rolling,
or draft horse for pulling,
and hills too steep,
with trees thick and deep.
So how to move countless
stone blocks up a mountain?
A hundred-man force
up an inclined plane course.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014
After a week that featured wonders of the modern world chosen by The American Society of Civil Engineers --
the Empire State Building (my favorite of my poems this week), the
Golden Gate Bridge, the
Itaipu Dam, the
Delta Works, and the
Panama Canal (I cheated and wrote a non-wonder poem that day) -- it's been nice to return to some ancient wonders:
Petra yesterday and Machu Picchu today.
What fun it's been to learn about unknown or little-known places around the world, and to marvel, day after day, at the ingenuity of the human race!
Robyn has the Poetry Friday roundup today at
Life on the Deckle Edge, and the Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem comes home to Irene at
Live Your Poem.
Carol Varselona at
BeyondLiteracyLink wrote a poem for the Panama Canal.
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Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here. |
17.
PetraPetra
The rose-stone buildings stand
with their backs to the mountains
shot by Bedouins
ransacked by tomb-robbers
photographed by tourists
shaken by earthquakes
eroded by flooding
disappearing as imperceptibly
but as certainly
as the dimming of our sun.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014
It was nice
yesterday to have a break from writing about the Wonders of the World, and instead write about the wonder of
my world. The insatiable urge of humankind to build, build, build (and in the process destroy, destroy, destroy) was wearing me out. At the same time, the enormity of our planet makes our little human scrapes and scratches, ditches and dams and monuments seem tiny and temporary. I am sorry that the amazing city of Petra will not last forever, but at the same time I am heartened that the desert will reclaim its mountains.
Carol's poem from yesterday, "On Building the Panama Canal" is a powerful metaphor.
Kevin's poem today is "Rose City," which you can see in final draft and in process at
Kevin's Meandering Mind.
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Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here. |
PRANK
Snow is falling --
a mid-April joke
not meant to do real harm --
just a jest,
a parody of the pollen
that will soon sneeze up the air.
Bright green grass grins
through the dusting of snow.
Magnolia blooms chuckle
under caps of white.
Daffodils sigh,
sorry to be gone so soon.
Muffler and mittens snicker
at shivering shorts-wearing Springsters.
Forsythia half-heartedly bloomed
only just last week.
Everyone knows her punchline is
one more snow.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014
Yeah, I know. That poem has exactly nothing to do with the Panama Canal. But it's the poem I wanted to write, and it's the poem I wrote, and there aren't enough hours in the day to write another.
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Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here. |
The Delta Works along the coast of the Netherlands are fascinating works of engineering.
I have a couple of Fibs for today.
The Netherlands
Low,
flat,
Holland,
diked and dammed.
From sea, polders rise:
a Mondrian of tulip fields.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014
Delta Works
Walled,
diked,
blocked up,
occluded,
barricaded shut:
the Netherlands holds back the sea.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014
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Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here. |
Compromise
Hungry for energy,
we sacrifice wild splendor,
harnessing the river's power,
taming it with concrete and steel,
satisfied with this compromise.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014
When the Itaipu Dam was built, the sacrifice was the Guaíra Falls, the world's largest waterfall by volume. Was it worth it? Depends how you determine worth, I guess...
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Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here. |
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| Wikipedia |
I'm photogenic
posing with waves, fog, sunsets
expensive "steel harp"
©Mary Lee Hahn
Carol has a pair of poems for the Empire State Building at
Carol's Corner.
Kevin also has a haiku today for the GGB.
I wanted to write short today so I would have time to share some of my students' writing.
For our Poetry Friday lesson, I shared my poems for the week with my students. (They didn't write with me this week. They were doing micro-research cause/effect paragraphs on slow and fast processes that change the earth.) I announced the theme of "Places" for their Poetry Friday reading or writing of poetry and sent them off to work. As always, they blew me away when we got back to share.
We heard poems from a wide range of poetry books:
A World of Wonders: Geographic Travels in Verse and Rhyme
by J. Patrick Lewis (I don't remember which poem, but perfect choice of books, eh?)
And we heard these originals (among others a bit too rough for publication just yet):
CatacombsHere I go
off by myself
just a donkey
without a doubt.
Then I tripped
into a place.
It felt as if
I went 100 feet deep.
Then I realized
it was a tomb.
Three cheers for the donkey!
They thought I didn't have a clue.
by HF
RiddleI am at a place where you can get whatever you desire.
You can have something as cool as the wind, or as spicy as fire.
I bet you will admire
the ones we have hired.
So can you guess where I am?
(Subway..."eat fresh") by CS
If You Use Your Mind
China holds a conga line,
Egypt makes chocolate kisses,
Home is what's yours and mine,
America has famous Miss-es.
Earth holds land, sea, and sky,
but it would be nothing without creation.
Earth holds those who walk, swim and fly,
creatures of all ages.
Jungles are a line of I's,
pines are cones of ice cream,
snow makes lands of sparkly white,
ice cream that stands on tall mountains.
Liberty is a welcomer of copper green,
the sea is a place you long to see.
Palms hold food and water, too,
all these things are on earth for you.
by MC
Here's another MC wrote, inspired by Stonehenge:
Rain was falling on me,
only one place left to go.
Stone.
I sat against the smooth stone,
shaded slightly from the rain.
Alone.
The place seemed erie,
I wondered if anyone was there.
One.
I thought I could hear whispers,
but
it's just my imagination.
I thought I could see figures.
I thought I could feel hands.
I thought I could hear voices.
I thought.
I knew.
I knew there was someone --
no,
it's not my imagination.
I knew I could see figures.
I knew I could feel hands.
I knew I could hear voices.
I knew.
I wondered.
I wondered if it was my imagination --
maybe,
maybe not.
I wondered who the figures were.
I wondered if they were like me.
I wondered what they were trying to say.
I wondered.
I thought.
by MC
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Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here. |
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| Wikipedia |
The Empire State BuildingA peach kabob
1A home for gods
2At the very tip
Kong loses his grip
3Fourth in height
4Icon of might
5Symmetrically planned
Art deco-ly grand
6©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014
1 In the book James and the Giant Peach, the peach ends its journey with a great squelch atop the pinnacle of the Empire State Building.
2 In Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series, Mount Olympus is the Empire State Building.
3 King Kong tried to escape his captors by climbing the Empire State Building, but it didn't work out the way he planned.
4 In North America...for the time being.
5 The nickname of the state of New York is "The Empire State," a reference to its wealth and resources.
6 The Empire State Building's art deco style is typical of pre-WWII architecture in New York City.
Carol's "Edgewalk" from yesterday's CN Tower is a must-read at
Carol's Corner.
Kevin annotated his poem for today, "
Empires Rise and Fall," on Poetry Genius. (He is one, by the way.)
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Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here. |
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| Wikipedia |
Stand Up Straight
Okay, Mom.
I get it now.
All those
"Stand
up
straight!"s
were your way
of saying,
"Be proud!"
"Be confident!"
"Be yourself!"
I wish
I had listened.
I'd like to
go back
and tell my
teen self
those very same
things.
And now,
as I watch
you bend
and shrink
with age,
my own
"Stand up straight!"s
take on
new urgency,
as does
my own reminder to
"Listen to your mother"
so I can soak up
every story.
every bit of wisdom
before it's too late.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014
What a week. More than once, I've grumbled, "Who thought up this crazy Wonders of the World poem-a-day challenge?"
Oh, yeah. I did.
One of the things I've done to keep myself sane (and keep the poems coming) is to not write exactly about the wonder itself.
I am enjoying the company of Carol, at
Carol's Corner, and Kevin, at
Kevin's Meandering Mind. It would be awfully lonely without them, because between the day job and the daily poem, there isn't much time left over to go visiting all the other Poetry Month projects.
I'll make time tomorrow to make an exception. First I'll add a line to the Progressive Poem, then I'll read around the roundup and get a taste of all the poetic goodies.
Today
Carol shares an arun about the Channel Tunnel from yesterday's wonder.
Kevin added humor to his poem for the CN Tower by making a webcomic.
Michelle has the roundup at
Today's Little Ditty. Be sure to wish her a happy blog birthday -- her little ditty turned ONE this week!
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Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here. |
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| Wikipedia |
The Song of the OverworkedThere’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
We thought it would never appear.
We toiled and we moiled ‘til we thought we would drop.
When we saw it we gave out a cheer!
Now we know we can make it the whole way.
Our steps have new vigor and zeal.
We’ll skip and we’ll prance and we’ll sprint to the end.
We can outlast this wretched ordeal.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014
The Channel Tunnel is a fascinating feat of human engineering. I love that cross-section that shows how deep it goes.
But my poem for today refused to be about this exact tunnel. First it wanted to be about earthworms and moles. Then I got the phrase "There's a light at the end of the tunnel" stuck inside my head. Maybe because it's been such a long week. Maybe because our state's "blessed event" is within sight at the end of this month. Maybe because I am starting to plan out my professional development and travel plans for the summer.
No matter what you're working your way through, this poem is for you -- I hope you can see the light at the end of your tunnel.
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Details of my Poetry Month Project can be found here. |
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Wikipedia
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W is for Wonder
From the far end of the reflecting pool
the Taj Mahal is a W.
Unanswered questions carved in white marble:
What? Where? When? Why? and are you able
to fathom the love the emperor felt
when he had this tribute built?
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014
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| Wikipedia |
8.
The Leaning Tower of PisaA Note From the Architect
I didn't mean
for my tower to lean --
my work is usually not sloppy.
At least I know
that history will show
my creation will never be copied.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014
A note about the architect: there is actually controversy about the architect of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Imagine that. No one made sure to leave concrete (pun intended) evidence that this mistake was his.
Be sure you go over to
Carol's Corner and read her poem about the Hagia Sophia from yesterday. Wow.
Kevin used a Google tool to make his Leaning Tower poem today. It's at
Kevin's Meandering Mind.
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| Wikipedia |
7.
Hagia SophiaThe Hagia Sophia began as Greek Orthodox church, then it became a mosque, and now it's a museum in Istanbul, Turkey.
The whole time I was swimming my mile yesterday, I was thinking about religions. About how different religions fight to say that theirs is the true one, about the wars throughout human history that have been waged in the name of religion. There are many places (case in point, the Hagia Sophia) that have been declared holy by one religion, and the invading culture says, "Yes, this is holy...but now in OUR religion." Holy can't ever seem to be a shared holiness. Humans and our civilizations are fairly new to the planet and maybe the things we think are so important that we would kill for them are actually as fleeting as a cloud passing across the sun. It is that idea that gave me the image for my haiku today.
clouds block the sun
spires and domes are shadowed
brief darkness passes
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014
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The Eight Gratitudes
I hope you won't think I'm wasting
one of my eight
by choosing daffodils.
They hold hope
in their cup-and-saucer blooms.
If I choose
books --
the ones I bought yesterday,
plus the ones that line nearly every wall of every room --
can they also stand
for the authors,
and my fellow readers,
and a quiet afternoon
spent curled up on the couch reading?
Is that cheating?
How could I not
include chocolate?
Or my mug of hot tea
first thing
in the morning?
When I close my eyes
and think of home,
I picture my mother,
looking out the window
above the kitchen sink,
calling me
to come and see
the sunset.
Yes, that's worth three:
home, mom, sunsets.
Number eight is silence,
which was broken just now
by the train's whistle,
and earlier
by the robins and wrens
singing in the dark.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2014
As I read about The Porcelain Tower of Nanjing, trying to find a starting point for a poem, I came across these names for the pagoda: "Bao'ensi, or "Temple of Gratitude," and I learned that the base of the tower is octagonal. That's all I needed. My poem would be, "The Eight Gratitudes," which is a poem I could probably (
should probably) write every day of my life with eight different gratitudes per day. After all, there's a
growing body of research that shows an "Attitude of Gratitude" is actually good for your health.
The original tower, built to honor either the Emperor's parents or just his mother, was destroyed in the 19th Century, but was rebuilt in 2010.
Amy has been writing about her mentor poems in her process notes for her daily poems at
The Poem Farm. I didn't have a particular poem in mind as I wrote, but I tried to imitate the conversational tone of Billy Collins or George Bilgere's poetry.
Be sure to visit
Carol's Corner to see the fabulous abecedarian Carol wrote about The Great Wall of China yesterday.
by Douglas Florian (the one about the T-Rex, perhaps at a museum or on site at a dig)
collected by J. Patrick Lewis ("City Mouse/Country Mouse")
by Laura Purdee Salas (the one about getting lost in a new school -- very appropriate since they visited their middle schools this week and are a delicious mixture of excitement and dread)
by Marilyn Singer (the one about the mountain goats)
by Amy Sklansky (the one about blasting off -- our space expert has read a poem from this book just about EVERY Poetry Friday all year long!)